• 


BLIND 

A  STORY   OF  THESE   TIMES 


BY 

ERNEST  POOLE 


SJem 
THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

1920 

All  Rights  Reserved 


V 


COPYRIGHT,   1920, 

BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.      Published  October,  1920. 


To  M.  A. 


424743 


BLIND 

CHAPTER  I. 

LATE  on  a  warm  cloudy  night  in  April,  1919,  upon 
a  hill  in  Connecticut  a  few  miles  inland  from  the  Sound, 
a  large  capacious  spreading  old  house  of  brick  and  frame 
loomed  like  a  great  squat  shadow  there.  Upstairs  were 
many  people  asleep.  Below  there  was  not  a  light  nor  a 
sound — except  in  one  room,  where  in  the  darkness  the 
click  of  a  typewriter  was  heard. 

So  this  narrative  was  begun : 


1. 

I  am  blind — but  no  blinder  than  is  the  mind  of  the 
world,  these  days.  The  long  thin  splinter  of  German 
steel  which  struck  in  behind  my  eyes  did  no  more  to 
me  than  the  war  has  done  to  the  vision  of  humanity. 
In  this  year  of  deep  confusion — clutching,  grabbing,-* 
spending,  wasting,  and  in  Europe  plague  and  famine,  ' 
desperation  and  revolt — mankind  is  reeling  in  the  dark. 
And  in  these  long  queer  crowded  nights,  half  waking 
and  half  sleeping,  it  has  seemed  to  me  at  times  as 
though  the  bedlam  of  it  all  were  pounding,  seething 
into  me.  I  was  once  a  playwright — and  vividly  there 
comes  to  me  a  memory  of  the  Broadway  crowds  on  a 
big  rush  Saturday  night.  A  sightless  beggar  stood  by 
the  curb,  and  in  a  harsh  shrill  piercing  voice  he  kept 
repeating,  "Help  the  blind!"  The  Soul  of  Man  is  like 
him  now. 

But  this  is  against  doctor's  orders.   The  medical  chap 
who  lifted  me  out  of  my  recent  darkness  is  taking  no 


4         ;}  ;  >:;  :/t:  \  .::  E  L,  i  N  D 

chances  of  a  return  to  that  black  melancholia.  He  still 
hopes  that  I  may  regain  my  sight.  In  the  meantime,  he 
has  given  orders,  and  I  have  agreed,  that  in  this  writ 
ing  I  shall  leave  the  present  and  take  a  long  trip  for 
my  health  back  into  the  distant  past,  and  that  only  after 
working  through  the  memories  of  some  forty  years 
shall  I  come  again  to  this  baffling  age — please  God,  with 
a  new  pair  of  eyes,  and  a  deeper  vision  of  it  all. 

My  doctor's  name  is  Steve  McCrea,  and  I  have  known 
him  all  my  life,  for  we  were  boys  together  here.  In  the 
months  that  have  just  gone  by,  he  knew  how  I  dreaded 
the  nights  alone.  From  my  newspaper  days,  I  had  been 
an  owl.  In  the  army  I  had  learned  to  sleep,  but  again  I 
had  lost  the  trick  of  it.  And  knowing  this,  from  his 
home  nearby  almost  every  evening  Steve  motored  over 
for  long  talks.  At  first  we  talked  about  the  war;  but 
already  we  were  beginning  to  see  that  the  roar  of  guns 
had  been  only  a  part  of  a  deeper  mightier  process  which 
had  ploughed  up  the  whole  world,  and  strange  new  har 
vests  had  appeared.  We  wondered  what  still  lay  ahead. 
In  seeking  the  answer  we  groped  in  the  past.  Back 
ward  along  the  devious  paths  of  our  two  lives  we  jour 
neyed  far;  and  the  memories  rose  haphazard — the  big 
movements  and  events  all  mingled  with  personal  hopes 
and  schemes,  ambitions,  family  quarrels,  small  comedies 
and  tragedies.  As  we  talked  we  would  often  chuckle  or 
laugh.  Again  there  would  be  silent  spells  ...  At  last 
I  would  see  him  to  the  door,  listen  to  his  motor  start, 
and  with  these  queer  new  sensitive  ears  I  would  follow 
it  by  the  diminishing  sound  down  the  long  winding 
country  road.  Then  I  would  come  back  to  this  room, 
put  out  the  lamp  I  did  not  need,  re-light  my  pipe  and 
for  a  time  I  would  sit  here  remembering  and  thinking 
of  this  book  of  mine — while  the  house  I  once  knew  so 
well  by  sight  grew  familiar  again  by  sound,  by  its  tiny 
creaks  and  stirrings,  the  numberless  whispers  of  its  life. 


BLIND  5 

It  drew  close  like  an  old  friend  from  the  past,  evoking 
the  scenes  and  the  faces. 

So  now,  if  you  will,  escape  with  me  out  of  the  glare 
and  the  din  of  these  days  far  back  into  the  years  gone  by. 

2. 

In  that  world  of  long  ago  which  existed  before  the 
war,  on  a  peaceful  Sabbath  morning  in  1875,  Steve's 
father,  who  was  the  clergyman  in  our  Presbyterian 
church,  sprinkled  some  cold  water  on  my  innocent  bald 
baby  head,  stopped  while  I  sneezed  violently,  and  then 
declared  in  solemn  tones,  "Lawrence  Carrington  Hart, 
I  baptize  thee  in  the  name  of  the  Father,  and  of  the  Son, 
and  of  the  Holy  Ghost."  So  much  for  my  age  and 
name.  My  friends  call  me  Larry  Hart. 

With  a  sister  and  two  small  cousins,  I  was  brought 
tip  by  my  Aunt  Amelia.  From  ever  since  I  could 
recall,  she  had  been  the  head  of  the  family.  Her  hus 
band,  my  father's  elder  brother,  had  been  -the  country 
doctor  here.  My  father,  John  Hart — or  J.  Carrington 
Hart,  as  he  was  known  later  in  New  York — had  devel 
oped  a  small  foundry  in  a  town  on  the  Sound  five  miles 
away.  Meanwhile,  he  had  married,  and  my  sister  Lucy 
and  I  were  born  in  a  house  on  the  edge  of  the  town. 
But  our  mother  died  when  we  were  small,  and  we  came 
to  Aunt  Amelia's.  A  few  years  later,  our  uncle  died; 
and  then  Dad  sold  the  house  in  town  and  came  out  to 
live  with  us.  And  until  I  went  away  to  school,  my  mem 
ories  are  all  wrapped  up  in  this  family  home  of  ours, 
which  was  known  as  Seven  Pines. 

It  is  an  old  Connecticut  house  set  firmly  on  a  low 
green  hill,  with  seven  pines  around  it,  a  wide  meadow 
extending  down  to  the  road.  Below  in  the  distance  on 
sunny  days  gleam  the  blue  waters  of  the  Sound.  The 
house  is  of  brick  painted  white,  with  four  slender  white 
wooden  columns  in  front  and  a  frame  wing  on  either 


6  BLIND 

side;  and  there  are  stables  and  a  barn  and  various  other 
buildings.  Inside  the  house  are  many  rooms  and  nar 
row  halls,  steps  up  and  down.  It  has  been  here  for  a 
hundred  years,  sending  the  quiet  smoke  of  its  hearths 
to  the  sun  by  day  and  the  stars  by  night,  the  heavy 
stones  of  its  foundations  grown  to  be  like  part  of  the 
soil  of  rocky  New  England.  "How  firm  a  foundation, 
ye  Saints  of  the  Lord."  As  a  boy  I  used  to  connect  that 
hymn  with  the  huge  gray  and  yellow  boulders  by  our 
cellar  door. 

But  if  founded  on  the  rocks  of  New  England,  the 
house,  when  we  were  children,  was  filled  with  the  spirit 
of  the  West — brought  in  by  my  Aunt  Amelia. 

Here  is  a  brief  sketch  of  her  life.  In  1854,  her  fam 
ily  left  the  Mohawk  Valley  to  join  the  vast  migration 
west.  They  settled  in  Wisconsin.  A  little  girl  of  nine 
years  old,  the  trip  by  rail,  canal  boat,  wagon,  was  her 
first  immense  adventure — with  thrilling  incidents,  day 
and  night.  Wolves,  Indians,  flocks  of  pigeons  that  dark 
ened  the  entire  sky,  woods  full  of  game,  rivers  teeming 
with  fish.  Age  of  myth  and  endless  stories — which  she 
told  to  us  as  children.  One  of  my  "best  favorites"  was 
the  story  of  Indian  John.  A  tall  shaggy  half-witted  old 
man,  they  had  known  him  back  in  the  East,  where  he 
was  one  of  the  last  of  his  tribe.  He  would  came  stalk 
ing  up  to  the  farm-house,  put  his  fingers  to  his  mouth 
and  say  hoarsely,  "Hungry!  Haw!"  After  he  had  been 
given  his  supper  he  would  lie  down  by  the  hearth  for 
the  night,  and  my  aunt  and  her  two  little  brothers  would 
shiver  at  his  mutterings  and  his  big  dull  smouldering 
eyes.  Then  the  family  moved  west.  It  was  like  a  trip 
around  the  world.  But  six  months  later,  at  sunset,  a  tall 
gray  familiar  figure  stalked  up  to  their  home,  put  his 
hand  to  his  mouth  and  said,  "Hungry !  Haw !"  He  had 
trailed  them  for  a  thousand  miles! 

She  told  us  of  the  slow  hard  growth  of  that  lonely 


BLIND  7 

little  Wisconsin  town.  Her  father  had  a  saw-mill  there, 
and  later  he  developed  a  thriving  lumber  business.  Their 
neighbors  were  a  rugged  lot,  native  Yankees  and 
Germans,  too,  who  had  escaped  from  their  country  after 
a  struggle  which  they  called  "the  Great  Revolution  of 
Forty-Eight" — but  which  to  Aunt  Amelia  seemed  but 
a  poor  and  doubtful  affair  compared  to  the  momentous 
war  that  began  when  she  was  still  in  her  'teens  What 
vivid  idealized  stories  she  told  of  the  call  to  arms,  the 
recruiting  and  drilling,  swift  love  affairs  and  brave 
goodbyes,  and  busy  groups  of  women  and  girls  working 
for  the  soldiers.  Idealized,  yet  real  in  a  sense,  filled 
with  convincing  human  details,  for  she  had  a  rich  sense 
of  humor.  But  though  she  often  smiled  as  she  talked, 
her  eyes  grew  bright  and  moist  at  times  and  her  voice 
took  on  a  reverent  tone.  For  around  that  war,  in  her 
memory,  above  the  tiny  human  folk  with  their  many 
faults  and  weaknesses,  hovered  mighty  figures  unseen, 
formless  spirits  with  such  names  as  the  Union,  the 
Republic,  Liberty,  Emancipation.  And  when  my  Aunt 
Amelia  sang  "Mine  Eyes  Have  Seen  the  Glory  of  the 
Coming  of  the  Lord" — she  meant  it,  every  word  of  it. 
She  was  singing  of  her  youth. 

Later,  on  a  trip  to  the  East,  she  met  our  uncle,  Dan 
iel  Hart,  who  had  served  as  a  surgeon  in  the  war.  They 
married  and  made  this  house  their  home.  But  although 
she  came  to  love  it  here,  she  still  looked  to  the  West 
as  the  land  of  her  dreams  and  of  great  openings  and 
ideals.  Many  of  her  friends  and  relations  had  since  gone 
still  farther  out  to  the  prairies  and  the  mountains,  to 
farm,  ranch,  lumber  camp  and  mine.  And  her  eager 
fancy  followed  them,  in  the  numberless  letters  that  she 
wrote  and  in  long  absorbing  talks  with  those  who  came 
to  see  her  here.  She  lovecf  to  have  such  visitors. 

She  had  been  to  Europe  only  once.  When  still  a  girl 
in  her  twenties,  her  father  had  taken  her  abroad;  and 


8  BLIND 

she  liked  to  tell  how  meeting  men  of  various  nations 
over  there,  in  his  hearty  ringing  voice  he  would  urge 
each  one  of  them  to  come  and  visit  him  in  Wisconsin. 
That  was  the  most  wonderful  part  of  this  whole  coun 
try,  she  declared.  It  had  welcomed  all  the  peoples  of 
Europe;  and  over  in  never  ending  tides  they  had  poured, 
to  prove  what  stuff  they  were  made  of. 

Aunt  Amelia  has  always  been  to  me  the  most  won 
derful  woman  I've  ever  known — and  one  of  the  few 
great  Americans.  In  this  narrative  it  will  be  hard  for 
me  not  to  idealize  her — for  she  herself  has  always  ideal 
ized  her  country.  As  I  write,  she  is  slowly  dying 
upstairs — a  staunch  feeble  woman  of  seventy-five — but 
the  hour  I  spend  each  day  by  her  bed  is  a  time  that  I 
look  forward  to.  For  she  is  so  happy  about  her  life. 
Ranging  through  her  memories,  she  has  such  a  good 
time  in  them  all.  Again  and  again  will  her  keen  humor 
shatter  some  pretension  or  sham  in  someone  we  both 
knew  in  the  past;  but  hardly  has  the  smile  of  relish  left 
her  wide  firm  sensitive  mouth  and  her  blue  eyes,  before 
she  will  go  placidly  on  idealizing  this  life  she  has  known 
— not  so  much  the  people  themselves  as  certain  deep 
emotions  in  them,  yearnings,  hungers  and  ideals  more 
or  less  submerged  in  their  lives  but  in  which  she  has  had 
an  astounding  faith,  and  which  she  has  put  together  into 
what  she  calls  "the  Soul  of  the  West."  This  is  her  Holy 
of  Holies,  and  here  no  humor  is  allowed. 

She  has  always  been  to  me  like  that.  When  I  was  a 
boy,  she  was  a  great  mother.  We  little  youngsters  were 
in  luck.  A  small  woman  with  a  resolute  mouth,  her  hair 
already  touched  with  gray  was  worn  low  down  over  her 
ears  and  bound  with  a  blue  ribbon.  She  had  rather 
stubby  busy  hands  which  as  a  rule  were  knitting  or 
sewing — and  I  remember  her  shelling  peas.  She  had 
eyes  that  made  a  friend  of  a  boy.  She  laughed  little 
but  smiled  a  great  deal.  There  was  something  so  eager 


BLIND  9 

and  wide  awake  in  that  smile  and  in  those  eyes  of  hers. 
From  the  breakfast  table  at  seven  o'clock  to  the  time 
when  she  kissed  us  goodnight  in  our  beds,  I  could  feel 
her  watching  us.  In  her  busy  active  life — for  she  had 
many  interests  outside — she  still  found  time  to  explore 
us  all,  and  with  us  to  explore  the  world.  Oh,  the  long 
solemn  talks  we  had,  and  the  jokes  and  the  conspira 
cies  !  How  young  she  was  and  how  very  gay.  I  once 
heard  her  say  to  a  tall  thin  woman  who  came  in  to  talk 
over  a  sin  that  someone  had  committed,  "I'm  afraid  I 
don't  care  half  as  much  as  I  should  about  seeing  people 
good,  my  dear.  I  \vant  to  see  them  happy." 

Again,  the  richest  woman  of  our  neighborhood  came 
in  to  tell  of  a  cottage  she  had  built  near  her  home  for 
worn  out  working  girls  from  New  York.  Complacently 
the  stout  dame  described  what  a  treat  it  would  be  for 
the  poor  young  things.  As  Aunt  Amelia  listened,  her 
lips  set  in  a  vicious  smile;  and  when  the  woman  was 
gone,  she  declared. 

"I  don't  see  how  she  can  face  those  girls  when  they 
come  to  her  charity  cottage!  Right  beside  her  own 
house,  too!  If  she  wants  them,  why  not  invite  them 
there?" 

She  herself  was  always  inviting  people,  many  of 
whom  for  some  reason  or  other  were  for  the  moment 
down  on  their  luck. 


3. 

With  such  a  woman  we  were  reared.  In  this  old  house 
or  out  on  the  farm,  through  the  four  seasons  of  the  year, 
we  little  shavers — Lucy  and  I,  with  our  cousins  Ed  and 
Dorothy — packed  our  lives  with  work  and  play,  our 
lessons,  games,  discoveries,  thrilling  adventures,  hopes 
and  plans,  dark  guilty  deeds.  Small  memories  that  once 
loomed  large.  I  pick  but  a  few  at  random : 

I  remember  one  night  when  I  woke  up  in  the  room 


10  BLIND 

where  I  slept  with  my  cousin  Ed.  The  room  was  very 
dark  at  night,  for  a  big  tree  outside  the  window  shut 
out  even  the  light  of  the  stars.  I  woke  up  with  a  start. 
My  pillow  was  gone!  Burglars,  goblins!  I  lay  there  in 
terror.  Then  shutting  both  eyes  I  reached  out  in  the 
darkness.  My  fingers  clutched  a  pillow,  jerked  it  in, 
and  I  buried  my  face.  Golly!  What  relief  I  felt.  But 
just  as  I  was  dropping  asleep  the  pillow  was  jerked  away 
from  me!  At  this  my  heart  gave  one  big  throb  and 
felt  like  a  lump  of  ice.  Goblins,  unmistakable  goblins! 
I  was  quaking  to  my  toes.  I  tried  hard  to  scream  for 
help,  but  I  could  not  make  a  sound.  For  some  moments 
I  lay  waiting  there  to  be  seized  and  carried  out  into  the 
night.  There  was  a  chance,  just  a  chance  for  me  then — 
to  grab  a  branch  of  the  tree  outside!  The  moments 
passed — but  nothing  happened.  I  mustered  courage  and 
reached  out;  once  more  my  fingers  clutched  the  pillow, 
yanked  it  back.  And  the  next  instant  there  burst  forth 
a  perfect  roar  of  terror — from  little  Ed  in  his  bed  next 
mine.  It  was  his  pillow  I  had  grabbed  each  time.  Mine 
lay  on  the  other  side  of  my  bed  where  it  had  dropped 
upon  the  floor.  When  this  fact  dawned  upon  us  both,  so 
deep  and  glad  was  our  relief  that  we  rose  together  as 
one  man,  sneaked  downstairs  to  the  pantry,  stole  some 
crackers  and  jam,  and  came  back  to  feast  by  candle 
light  while  we  talked  over  the  great  event. 

"Why  didn't  you  yell  ?"  he  asked  me  in  awe.  I  sneered 
at  him  disdainfully. 

"Only  little  fellers  yell,"  I  replied.  Ed  sneezed  and 
sneezed.  What  a  cold  he  caught! 

My  next  recollection  is  ugly  enough.  It  is  of  a  sum 
mer's  afternoon  when  with  Lucy  and  Dorothy  we  chased 
a  gopher  into  its  hole.  Eagerly  we  brought  pails  of 
water;  and  when  the  wretched  half-drowned  little  beast 
came  out,  Ed  and  I  fiercely  kicked  it  to  death.  The  next 


BLIND  11 

moment  Dorothy,  who  was  little  more  than  a  baby  then, 
was  sobbing  as  though  her  heart  would  break.  Lucy 
promptly  followed  suit;  Ed  caught  the  contagion  and 
sniffled,  too — while  I,  with  a  big  lump  in  my  throat, 
demanded  resentfully  of  the  girls, 

"Well,  why  didn't  you  stop  us?  Why  did  you  help 
us  carry  the  pails?  Yes,  you  did — you  know  you  did!" 

Aunt  Amelia  did  not  punish  us — but  after  the  talk 
she  gave  us  that  day  I  sneaked  off  alone  to  a  certain 
secret  tree  in  the  wood,  where  I  used  to  expiate  my 
crimes,  and  I  whacked  my  shins  and  thighs  till  they 
ached.  As  a  rule,  I  whacked  gently,  but  this  time  when 
ever  I  stopped  I  would  recall  something  else  she  had 
said — and  then  I  would  whack  sternly  on. 

I  remember  one  good  spanking  I  got — not  because 
of  the  pain  involved  but  because  of  the  look  on  my 
father's  face.  He  was  trying  hard  to  look  stern  but  he 
was  laughing  deep  inside,  and  this  rankled  in  my  soul. 
Here  I  was  being  punished  for  having  furnished  amuse 
ment  to  all!  It  was  pretty  darned  tough.  What  had  I 
done?  I  had  simply  dropped  a  grasshopper  down  Lucy's 
neck  in  church  that  day.  But  as  it  happened,  Steve's 
father  had  paused  in  his  sermon  just  then  to  ask: 

"What  is  the  Lord  Jesus  doing  for  you?" 

And  Lucy  had  screamed: 

"He's  tickling  me!" 

I  had  dug  my  elbow  into  her  ribs.  "Now  you've  done 
it!  I'm  in  for  it!"  But  to  my  glad  astonishment  there 
had  been  such  laughter  in  that  church  as  was  never  heard 
before.  Even  the  bilious  tenor  had  laughed.  Suddenly 
it  had  dawned  on  me  that  I  had  done  something  pretty 
cute.  This  conviction  still  remained.  And  while  my 
father  spanked  me,  my  young  soul  was  filled  with  gloom 
at  the  injustice  of  the  world.  I  had  afforded  those  people 
in  church  the  only  gleam  of  pleasure  in  many  dreary 


12  BLIND 

Sabbath  morns — and  now  to  be  spanked  for  it,  spanked 
for  it!  And  by  Dad  o>f  all  men!  I  gulped  down  my 
tears.  For  he  was  the  fellow  that  I  loved. 

I  saw  little  of  him  in  those  days.  He  liked  fast  horses; 
and  when  I  was  small,  to  my  great  joy  he  would  some 
times  let  me  drive  with  him  in  his  buggy  five  miles  to 
the  mill  town.  How  we  flew  along  the  road!  At  first 
I  believed  him  when  he  said  that  such  rides  could  only 
be  given  as  prizes  when  I  had  been  good.  But  I  found 
this  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  case.  I  could  be  as 
good  as  gold,  but  when  I  came  to  get  into  the  buggy  he 
would  scowl  over  his  cigar  (thinking  no  doubt  of  some 
business  snarl)  and  would  say  harshly.  "Not  today" — > 
while  on  some  other  mornings  when  I  had  been  dis 
tinctly  bad,  he  would  wink  at  me  in  a  jovial  way  and 
say,  "Come  on,  son."  How  I  loved  him  then! 

Toward  evening  all  four  of  us,  under  my  lead,  would 
wait  by  the  corner  down  the  hill.  I  would  be  the  farthest 
outpost;  the  rest  stood  at  intervals  up  the  road.  At  last 
I  would  hear  the  thud  of  hoofs  and  catch  a  glimpse  of 
the  buggy  twinkling  swiftly  through  the  trees.  I  would 
shout  to  the  next  scout, 

"There  he  is!" 

And  all  of  us  in  wild  excitement,  with  small  fat  Dor 
othy  in  the  rear  frantically  screaming,  "Wait  for  me!" 
would  race  up  the  winding  road  for  the  house — while 
closer  and  closer  came  the  thuds,  and  my  father's  ring 
ing  genial  bass: 

"I'll  win  this  race — I'll  win  this  race " 

But  he  always  managed  to  lose  it — just 

As  time  wore  on,  he  grew  more  remote.  He  spent 
more  and  more  of  his  nights  in  New  York;  and  when 
he  came  home,  to  my  chagrin,  it  appeared  that  I  was  no 
longer  his  pet.  To  my  sister  Lucy,  a  dark  slender  little 
girl  of  twelve,  and  to  Dorothy,  who  was  only  five  and 
round  as  a  little  button,  with  light  curly  hair  and  vivid 


BLIND  13 

blue  eyes,  Dad  gave  nearly  all  of  his  jokes  and  atten 
tions.  Ed  and  I  were  left  out  in  the  cold,  grimly  won 
dering  what  he  could  see  in  "nothing  but  a  couple  of 
girls."  But  it  did  not  weigh  very  hard  on  our  souls,  for 
we  were  now  going  to  school  in  the  village.  With  the 
village  boys  we  ranged  the  fields  and  wooded  hills,  fish 
ing,  trapping,  hunting  with  "sling  shots,"  going  iri 
swimming,  nutting,  coasting.  Vaguely  I  knew  from 
gossip  we  heard  that  my  father  was  growing  richer  fast; 
but  although  I  boasted  of  it  at  times,  it  made  little  im 
pression  on  my  mind — except  through  the  delightful  fact 
that  we  all  had  handsome  presents  at  Christmas  and  on 
birthdays;  and  still  more  through  my  keen  interest  in 
the  rebuilding  of  the  house.  A  wing  was  added  on  either 
side,  a  windmill  was  put  up  close  by,  and  the  stables 
and  our  farmer's  house  were  considerably  enlarged. 
I  remember  helping  the  carpenters  and  listening  to  their 
jokes  and  stories,  some  of  which  were  distinctly  broad. 
I  was  a  hungry  listener.  One  of  them  caught  me  at  it 
one  day,  and  said  with  a  grin, 

"Now  he'll  go  and  tell  his  father."  I  reddened  to  my 
very  ears. 

"Like  hell  I  will,"  I  stoutly  declared.  Another  car 
penter,  my  good  friend,  smiled  approvingly  and  said, 

"That's  right,  sonny,  use  your  ears  instead  of  your 
tongue,  and  you  will  learn  a  heap  sight  more  than 
you'll  ever  get  in  school.  He's  a  mixer — that's  what 
Larry  is." 

A  mixer!  I  hammered  proudly  on.  I  went  on  listen 
ing^  growing,  mixing.  I  recollect  dimly  a  wild  trip  with 
a  bibulous  and  fascinating  old  horse  dealer  friend  of 
mine,  on  a  freight  train  to  New  York.  I  started  off  like 
a  little  man  and  came  back  the  next  day  like  a  scared 
little  boy.  But  after  Aunt  Amelia's  talk  I  did  not  go  to 
my  secret  tree — for.  that  grim  institution  had  been  dis 
carded  long  ago. 


14  BLIND 

Small  memories  that  once  loomed  large,  in  a  world 
which  is  now  so  far  behind — a  world  without  a  tele 
phone,  a  movie  show  or  a  Sunday  paper,  an  automobile, 
an  airplane,  an  ocean  flight,  a  wireless,  a  war  or  any 
revolution.  Small  memories,  an  endless  chain.  But  I 
shall  skip  the  period  when  Lucy  and  I  went  away  to 
school,  and  come  to  the  momentous  time  when  we 
learned  that  Dad  was  to  marry  again. 


4. 

At  Thanksgiving,  Lucy  and  I  came  home  to  meet  the 
bride-to-be.  Our  small  plump  cousin  Dorothy  breath 
lessly  met  us  at  the  door.  She  was  seven  now  and 
extremely  important,  and  so  thrilled  by  the  event  that 
her  very  curls  were  quivering.  She  had  read  about  these 
stepmothers ! 

"Oh  she  is  just  too  horrible!"  Her  whisper  could  be 
heard  through  the  house.  "She's  perfectly  lovely  to  look 
at — but  she  has  the  cruelest  eyes " 

With  this  encouragement  we  went  in;  and  though 
our  future  mother  did  not  quite  come  up  to  Dorothy's 
picture,  I  promptly  disliked  her  nevertheless.  What  a 
gorgeous  creature  she  appeared.  Age,  twenty-six — of 
medium  size.  Blonde,  sleekly  gracious,  expensive,  good 
looking,  smiling  and  cocksure  of  herself.  "Every  inch 
a  born  New  Yorker!"  was  my  sister's  instant  verdict. 
At  Lucy's  school  over  half  the  girls  were  Westerners 
who  pretended  to  have  little  use  for  New  York;  and 
now  resentment  and  disdain  smouldered  deep  in  Lucy's 
gray  eyes  as  she  faced  this  girl  only  ten  years  older, 
who  had  smilingly  captured  Dad.  He  looked  so  much 
younger,  spick  and  span — "though  he  is  well  on  in  his 
forties!"  I  thought — his  heavy  figure  set  off  by  new 
clothes,  his  beard  trimmed  close  and  his  hair  cut  shorter 
— utterly  changed  and  lost  to  us  both. 

At  the  wedding  in  the  Park  Avenue  house  of  her 


BLIND  15 

family  we  were  a  doleful  pain  Our  father  took  his 
bride  abroad,  and  Lucy  and  I  went  back  to  school.  Dur 
ing  the  Christmas  vacation  Aunt  Amelia  comforted  us. 
She  would  still  be  our  mother  and  this  our  real  home. 
We  must  make  t^e  best  of  things  and  be  friends  with 
Dad's  new  wife.  What  to  call  her?  Mother?  No.  We 
decided  at  last  on  "Aunt  Fanny."  So  far,  so  good.  For 
the  present  at  least  she  was  out  of  the  way.  The  Christ 
mas  vacation  went  on  as  before,  and  then  the  routine 
life  in  school — and  soon  we  had  almost  *  forgotten  our 
trouble.  But  the  next  June  when  we  came  home,  we 
heard  another  bit  of  news.  Aunt  Fanny  was  to  have  a 
baby. 

"Confound  the  woman,"  I  exclaimed,  "why  can't  she 
let  well  enough  alone?" 

Aunt  Amelia  laughed  at  me,  but  I  strode  angrily  up 
and  down,  while  Lucy  fairly  snorted  with  wrath. 

'"We  won't  stay!"  she  declared.  For  the  trouble  was 
this.  Our  new  mother  had  not  yet  inveigled  Dad  into 
purchasing  a  country  house,  and  so  they  were  to  come 
here  for  the  summer — while  our  aunt  was  to  go  to  her 
old  home  in  Wisconsin,  taking  Dorothy  and  Ed.  In 
vain  we  begged  her  to  take  us,  too. 

"No,"  she  decided  firmly,  "I  always  believe  in  facing 
things.  You  must  not  make  a  wrong  start,  my  dears. 
Your  father  is  more  fond  of  you  than  you  have  any  idea 
of.  He  has  written  that  he  wants  you  here,  and  he'll 
be  hurt  if  you^go  away.  You  don't  want  to  lose  such  a 
father  as  that,'  and  you  must  begin  by  doing  your  best 
to  be  nice  and  friendly  with  his  wife." 

On  leaving  us  Dorothy  gripped  my  hand. 

"Don't  yr>u  ever  let  her  degratiate  you  into  calling 
her  'Mother'!"  she  enjoined. 

So  they  departed  from  Seven  Pines  and  left  us  to 
face  the  music  alone.  The  music  was  no  small  affair.  All 
day  long  by  every  train  Aunt  Fanny's  servants  and 


16  BLIND 

things  kept  arriving — a  regular  butler  and  six  maids, 
and  trunks  from  Paris  without  end — while  down  in  the 
stable  I  stood  about  with  my  old  chum  the  farmer,  Bill 
Flynt,  his  son  and  Steve  McCrea,  and  watched  the  Eng 
lish  coachman  install  himself  with  his  two  grooms,  the 
horses  and  rigs.  Dad  still  loved  good  horses — there 
could  be  no  doubt  of  that.  But  what  fool  surries,  traps 
and  dogcarts!  Plainly  these  had  been  her  choice!  .  .  . 
In  brief,  in  a  swelling  harmony  of  wealth  and  ease  and 
elegance,  in  a  few  days  the  house  was  transformed  from 
a  simple  old  American  home  to  the  country  place  of  a 
"born  New  Yorker."  Aunt  Fanny  presided,  good- 
humored  and  gay,  filling  awkward  silences,  admiring  all 
Lucy's  clothes  and  making  suggestions,  which  Lucy 
rejected,  but  which  I  could  see  impressed  my  kid  sister 
— who  seemed  to  me  to  be  watching  intently  every  stitch 
that  Aunt  Fanny  wore,  every  trick  in  her  manners  and 
speech. 

"We're  getting  on,"  I  heard  my  young  mother  say 
to  Dad  one  evening. 

We  were,  eh?  We  would  see  about  that!  She  had  a 
constant  succession  of  guests  and  told  us  to  ask  our  own 
friends,  too — but  grimly  I  declined  with  thanks.  I  was 
off  to  college  in  the  fall,  and  meanwhile  I  was  taking 
no  chances  of  "queering  myself"  with  my  boarding 
school  chums  by  bringing  them  to  such  a  home.  A  fel 
low  couldn't  be  too  careful.  For  like  them  I  was  booked 
for  Yale,  and  I  had  big  sacred  thoughts  about  real  Yale 
democracy.  "These  infernal  snobs!"  I  sneered. 

For  this  democratic  passion  in  me,  two  people  were 
responsible.  One  was,  my  Aunt  Amelia ;  the  other,  Steve 
McCrea.  The  minister's  son,  he  had  been  for  years  the 
leader  of  the  village  boys;  and  if  I  ever  tried  to  play  the 
snob  with  the  ragged  ones  in  the  gang,  Steve  soon  froze 
it  out  of  me  with  a  dry  ironic  smile  or  a  devastating 
twinkle  in  his  clear  brown  eyes.  He  was  some  years  older 
than  I,  and  when  I  went  away  to  school  he  went  to  a  medi- 


BLIND  17 

cal  college;  but  in  the  summers  he  worked  for  us.  He 
slept  at  home  and  had  his  meals  with  old  Bill  Flynt,  our 
farmer;  but  Aunt  Amelia  would  O'ften  ask  him  to  stay 
for  supper  up  at  the  house.  He  worked  for  us  and  was 
one  of  our  friends. 

But  this  summer  his  position  was  changed.  In  that 
amazing  transformation  which  the  household  under 
went,  Steve  became  "the  stable  boy."  I  heard  Aunt 
Fanny  call  him  that,  and  instantly  I  was  furious.  My 
democratic  instincts  surged  up  ready  for  a  fight.  But  my 
thunderous  indignation  collapsed  before  Steve's  quiz 
zical  eyes.  He  smiled  at  me  and  said,  "Oh,  my."  And 
so  "the  stable  boy"  he  became. 


5. 

I  come  now  to  a  night  in  early  September.  I  had 
been  riding  Lord  Jim  that  day.  We  had  had  a  fall  and 
as  a  result  he  had  a  nasty  gash  in  one  leg,  and  in  the 
stable  by  lantern  light  Steve  was  carefully  dressing  the 
wound.  On  account  of  his  medical  work  he  was  known 
in  the  stable  as  "Doc."  On  one  side  the  English  coach 
man  and  on  the  other  old  Bill  Flynt  were  each  giving 
him  advice.  Whatever  suggestion  one  of  them  made 
was  promptly  opposed  by  the  other,  with  a  withering 
contempt.  Between  them  sat  Steve  on  a  box,  with  the 
bruised  quivering  leg  of  the  horse  between  his  knees. 
Twenty-three  and  six  feet  two,  sleeves  rolled  up,  arms 
spattered  with  blood — on  his  lean  face  not  a  sign  of 
attention  to  the  advice  from  either  side,  except  now  and 
then  a  slow  ironic  smile  of  content  as  he  worked  calmly, 
carefully  on.  At  times  he  would  direct  me  to  shift  the 
lantern  this  way  or  that.  I  was  standing  close  behind 
him — an  overgrown  youngster  of  seventeen,  all  arms 
and  legs,  already  six  feet  and  thin  as  a  rail,  stoop  shoul 
dered,  with  a  quick  flashing  smile  (so  I  am  told)  and 
little  humorous  twinkly  eyes. 

"Larry!" 


18  BLIND 

I  turned  sharply.  My  father's  strong  figure  was  in 
the  doorway.  His  voice  was  low,  but  the  hard  set  of  his 
wide  jaws  and  a  brusque  gesture  of  his  hand  made  me 
follow  him  quickly  outside.  There  he  told  me.  In  going 
upstairs  my  young  stepmother  had  tripped  and  fallen, 
and  it  seemed  more  than  likely  that  her  child  would  be 
born  before  morning.  What  to  do?  There  was  no 
telephone  in  those  days. 

"Go  to  town  and  send  this  wire,"  said  Dad.  It  was 
to  a  New  York  specialist.  "Then  get  Rainey  and  bring 
him  back."  Rainey  was  the  doctor  in  the  mill  town  five 
miles  away. 

"All  right,  Dad."  I  was  greatly  excited.  I  have  a 
sensitive  streak  in  me,  and  something  volcanic  deep  in 
Dad  rose  up  through  his  low  gruff  voice  and  went 
through  me  with  a  thrill.  He  returned  to  the  house, 
and  in  the  stable  I  rushed  about  giving  orders  pell  mell. 
First  I  told  them  to  saddle  Dad's  hunter,  a  big  bay 
mare. 

"Hold  on,  though,  wait!  That  won't  do!  I've  got  to 
bring  the  doctor  back!  Put  her  into  the  buggy!"  I 
cried. 

"Who's  sick,  son?"  I  heard  somebody  ask.  I  did  not 
answer.  Too  late  I  remembered  that  Dad  would  want 
no  gossip  down  here.  I  scowled  and  lit  a  cigarette, 
plunged  my  hands  in  my  pockets  and  strode  about.  My 
dislike  of  my  young  stepmother  was  gone.  Vaguely  I 
felt  like  a  young  knight-errant,  though  if  any  kind  friend 
had  told  me  so  I  would  certainly  have  knocked -him 
down.  I  leaped  into  the  buggy. 

"Stand  clear,  boys!    Let  her  go!" 

The  next  moment  we  were  out  of  the  uarn  and  tear 
ing  down  the  starlit  road. 

From  talks  that  I  had  later  with  Steve  I  gathered 
what  happened  while  I  was  gone.  In  the  stable  the 
speculation  on  who  was  sick  up  at  the  house  soon  nar- 


BLIND  19 

rowed  to  Aunt  Fanny;  and  knowing  of  her  condition, 
the  men  with  a  slow  deliberate  relish  began  to 
discuss  possibilities.  A  memory  came  to  old  Bill  Flynt. 

"Now  comin'  to  think  of  it,"  he  drawled,  "Doc 
Rainey  ain't  to  hum  tonight.  He's  gone  to  New  York 
to  take  a  hand  in  the  annual  meetin'  of  the  Elks." 

This  at  once  redoubled  the  interest  and  gave  a  new 
spice  to  the  whole  affair.  Bill's  boy  -was  sent  up  to  the 
house  with  the  news.  He  returned  on  the  run  to  an 
nounce  that  the  servants  were  "jest  a  buzzin'."  The 
Duchess  (my  stepmother)  had  fallen  half  down  the 
stairs,  he  declared,  and  had  been  carried  to  her  room. 
She  was  in  a  bad  way,  no  doubt  about  that.  How  did 
the  Boss  take  the  news  about  Rainey?  "He  jest  said, 
'God  damn  the  Elks !'  "  Now  the  gossip  centered  on  the 
one  absorbing  question.  Would  the  New  York  special 
ist  be  able  to  get  here  in  time?  A  time-table  was  pro 
cured,  and  when  that  had  been  thoroughly  discussed, 
the  drawling  nasal  voices  began  to  bring  up  memories 
of  children  born  into  the  world  without  medical  assist 
ance.  In  vain  did  the  English  coachman  try  to  squelch 
this  ribald  talk.  His  lofty  contempt  only  deepened  their 
relish.  All  the  men  were  now  in  the  barn,  standing  or 
sitting,  grouped  'round  the  lantern,  smoking,  chewing, 
stopping  to  spit.  Suddenly  there  was  a  silence.  And 
when  Steve,  who  had  taken  no  part  in  the  talk,  looked 
up  tensely  from  his  work,  he  saw  that  all  were  watch 
ing  him.  In  their  intent  and  motionless  eyes  he  caught 
a  look  of  awed  delight.  Old  Bill  Flynt  spoke  softly : 

"As  soon  as  you're  through  with  that  horse's  leg, 
Doc — there's  another  job  waitin'  up  at  the  house." 

Steve  said  nothing.  He  bent  to  his  work.  Slowly  he 
wrapped  the  bandage  tighter.  What  a  chance !  But  he 
did  not  want  it.  Savagely  he  told  himself  he  was  only  a 
kid  in  a  medical  school.  What  did  he  know?  What  had 
he  done?  He  had  delivered  two  women — just  two — a 


20  BLIND 

Dago  and  a  Pollack.  And  at  the  thought  of  the 
gorgeous  young  mistress  of  the  house,  the  beads  of  sweat 
came  out  on  his  temples.  He  heard  a  low  chuckle  and 
the  remark, 

"And  she  calls  Doc  'the  stable  boy'." 

The  discussion  went  on  for  a  few  moments  longer, 
and  then  abruptly  it  stopped  again,  as  my  father  quickly 
enteYed  the  barn.  He  spoke  to  Steve,  who  put  on  his 
coat  and  went  with  Dad  up  to  the  house.  There  were 
few  better  gamblers  than  was  my  father  in  his  day; 
and  having  once  decided  on  Steve,  he  lost  no  time  in 
showing,  by  brief  questions  and  remarks,  how  he  relied 
upon  him  now.  Steve's  confidence  began  to  come  back. 
A  list  of  essentials  was  made  out  and  sent  to  the  village 
drug  store.  At  last  my  father  went  upstairs,  leaving 
Steve  in  the  library. 

And  then  he  noticed  Lucy  there — a  girl  of  sixteen, 
'dark  and  slender,  undeveloped  and  still  rather  plain — 
but  she  had  strikingly  beautiful  eyes.  As  she  sat  with  a 
book  at  the  end  of  the  room,  every  few  minutes  he  could 
feel  her  shoot  a  quick  glance  up  at  him.  Unobserved 
she  had  listened  eagerly  to  the  talk  between  the  two  men. 
It  was  she  who  had  suggested  to  Dad  that  we  had  a 
'doctor  on  the  place;  but  later  she  confessed  to  me  that 
she  had  her  misgivings  now.  The  odor  of  the  stable 
had  come  with  Steve  into  the  room,  and  she  simply 
could  not  see  him  upstairs.  Still,  for  that  matter,  she 
could  picture  nothing  of  what  would  happen  up  there. 
Nor  did  she  try.  She  had  been  bred  not  to  think  about 
that.  And  it  was  just  this  breeding  which  appealed  to 
Steve  that  night.  For  he,  too,  had  had  his  bringing  up 
—by  a  Puritanical  father — and  he  told  me  what  a  clean 
fresh  relief  it  was  to  him  that  evening,  coming  from  the 
coarse  talk  in  the  stable,  to  feel  the  way  Lucy  was  tak 
ing  it.  Her  big  gray  eyes  showed  her  sense  of  the 
drama  but  no  realization  of  its  details.  Her  silent  deep 


BLIND  21 

excitement  gave  him  a  new  glow  of  strength.  A  subtle 
current  passed  between  them,  vibrant  with  youth  and 
eager  life,  hunger  for  experience. 

The  man  who  had  gone  to  the  village  returned,  and 
he  brought  a  change  of  clothes  for  Steve.  Dad  came 
downstairs,  and  at  sight  of  his  heavy  anxious  face  Lucy 
jumped  up  and  went  to  him.  He  smiled  and  patted  her 
shoulder  and  told  her  she'd  better  go  to  bed.  Then  he 
took  Steve  to  an  upper  room  to  wash  and  change  his 
clothing.  Later,  as  they  were  going  together  to  Aunt 
Fanny's  room,  my  father  stopped  in  the  hall  and  said, 

"I  know  you're  going  to  handle  this  right.  My  wife 
is  not  so  sure  of  you — but  you  will  make  her  feel  so 
from  the  moment  you  enter  the  room.  Understand? 
She's  a  woman — you're  a  man.  And  you  know  your 
business.  Now  come  in." 

A  moment  later  Steve  faced  two  women,  a  capable 
looking  English  maid  and  Aunt  Fanny,  who  was  stand 
ing  with  her  small  hands  gripping  the  back  of  a  chair. 
Her  bright  tortured  angry  eyes  searched  his  and  found 
the  steadiness  that  Dad  had  put  there  for  the  crisis. 

In  the  meantime  I  had  returned  from  town.  Lucy 
had  not  gone  to  bed,  and  for  what  seemed  hours  we 
waited  here,  in  this  room  where  I  am  writing  now. 
Lucy  and  I  had  been  close  chums.  In  a  low  strained 
voice  she  asked  me  certain  questions.  The  things  I  had 
heard  from  boys  and  men  had  not  included  this  part  of 
it — but  I  answered  what  I  could.  Then  there  fell  long 
silences.  I  got  up  and  moved  restlessly  about.  Lucy  sat 
motionless  by  the  lamp.  .  .  .  Death!  What  a  smash 
ing  blow  to  poor  Dad!  .  .  .  No,  Steve  could  take  care 
of  this.  .  .  .  "The  stable  boy."  ...  I  smiled  at  that 
^-then  cursed  myself  for  smiling.  "What  a  damned 
hard  thing  for  a  woman  it  is.  What  a  queer  mysteri 
ous  thing  life  is."  .  .  .  Lucy  drew  a  quivering  breath. 
I  glanced  at  her.  Like  a  flash  came  the  thought :  "She'll 


22  BLIND 

go  through  a  night  like  this  herself  I*'  And  a  lump  rose 
sharply  in  my  throat.  She  looked  so  slender,  a  mere 
kid.  Then  she  looked  up  and  smiled  at  me,  and  the  lamp 
showed  her  face  was  wet  with  tears. 

It  was  dawn  when  we  heard  the  child's  first  cry;  and 
the  light  was  still  dim  in  the  room  when  Steve's  tall 
awkward  powerful  form  loomed  in  the  open  doorway. 

"It's  all  right  now,"  he  said.    "A  girl." 

We  had  both  come  close  to  him,  and  I  noticed  again 
Lucy's  big  eager  eyes. 

"Oh,  wonderful!"  she  whispered.  A  slight  answer 
ing  gleam  passed  over  his  face.  With  a  little  smile  he 
turned  to  me: 

"Your  father  wants  coffee  and  so  do  I.  Will  you  see 
to  it?  Have  it  sent  upstairs." 

He  squared  his  shoulders  as  though  they  ached,  and 
went  back  to  his  patient.  Lucy  sat  down  and  began  to 
cry,  smiling  blissfully  all  the  while. 

About  two  hours  later,  the  New  York  specialist  ar 
rived;  and  he  lost  no  time  In  revealing  to  us  just  how 
petty  and  how  mean  a  big  specialist  could  be.  When  he 
heard  the  good  news,  he  was  plainly  peeved.  He  roused 
Aunt  Fanny  out  of  a  sound  sleep  to  examine  her — and 
with  an  expression  of  grave  concern  he  prescribed  a 
course  of  treatment  to  repair  the  "serious  damage"  done. 
He  talked  to  Dad  and  the  nurse  he  had  brought.  Steve 
he  ignored  completely.  I  remember  the  hard  smile  of 
disillusionment  and  disgust  that  came  over  the  face  of  my 
chum.  He  went  home  to  the  village  to  get  some  sleep, 
and  I  found  him  there  in  the  afternoon  in  the  yard 
behind  his  father's  house.  He  was  lying  on  his  back  in 
the  grass  staring  grimly  at  the  clusters  of  crab-apples 
over  his  head.  He  spoke  little,  but  the  few  things  he 
said  showed  me  a  side  of  him  I  had  not  known.  With 
Steve  I  had  learned  to  fish  and  swim,  hunt,  use  an  axe 
or  hammer  or  saw,  cook  in  the  open,  sleep  out  at  night, 


BLIND  23 

ride  a  horse,  be  friends  with  a  horse.  I  had  known  him  as 
honest,  shrewd  and  kind,  plucky,  cool  and  practical,  with 
a  dry  humor  living  his  life.  But  by  what  he  said  that 
afternoon,  I  was  given  vaguely  to  feel  something  deeper 
in  him,  which  I  did  not  clearly  understand. 

Living  alone  with  his  father,  day  by  day  and  year  by 
year  he  had  seen  the  Christianity  which  his  parent 
preached  in  church  come  up  against  life  in  the  village 
and,  as  he  put  it — "kind  of  bounce  back."  Life  had 
seemed  the  more  real  of  the  two;  and  because  Steve  liked 
real  things  he  had  stuck  to  life  and  dropped  religion. 
This  had  opened  a  gap  between  father  and  son.  Later 
his  medical  studies  had  cleared  up  many  things  in  his 
mind.  Here  the  facts  of  life  were  explored  and  shown 
up  in  a  cold  clear  light.  And  because  for  all  his  keen 
practical  thinking,  Steve  was  an  idealist  with  much  of 
the  old  Puritan  left  deep  down  inside  of  him,  he  had 
made  a  new  religion — of  Science.  In  his  first  years  at 
the  medical  school,  working  on  a  schedule  of  from  five 
o'clock  in  the  morning  till  eleven  or  twelve  at  night,  he 
had  felt  himself  become  a  part  of  this  hard  clear  world 
of  realities.  Already  he  had  dreams  of  New  York  and  a 
hospital  appointment.  He  looked  to  the  big  men  there 
as  gods.  .  .  .  And  now  one  of  these  gods  had  been  petty 
and  mean !  In  the  new  religion,  as  in  the  old,  again  the 
disillusionment. 

Grimly  he  lay  there  in  the  grass  and  gave  me  rough 
intimations  of  this  in  brief  and  blunt  disjointed  remarks. 
Then  my  father  came  into  sight  around  the  corner  of 
the  house. 

"Hello,  boys."  He  came  over  and  stood  looking  down 
at  Steve.  "Don't  get  up — you've  earned  a  rest."  There 
was  a  quizzical  look  on  Dad's  face.  "You're  learning 
things,  eh?  All  big  men  have  queer  little  streaks,  and 
show  'em  at  times.  As  to  last  night — well,  I  don't  claim 
to  be  a  doctor,  but  I  have  a  kind  of  a  feeling  that  a 


24  BLIND 

woman's  life  was  saved  by  a  clean  splendid  piece  of 
work.  Here's  your  first  fee,  son — may  there  be 
many  more.  And  remember,  if  ever  you  need  a  boost, 
that  I'm  a  fellow  you  once  helped.  I  don't  want  to  for 
get  it — and  never  will.  In  the  meantime,  you  had  better 
drop  your  job  and  take  a  rest  before  you  go  back  to 
college." 

At  this  I  shot  a  quick  look  up  at  Dad.  For  as  clearly 
as  though  he  had  told  me  I  knew  that  this  was  my  young 
stepmother's  idea.  "The  stable  boy"  must  disappear. 

"Coming,  Larry?" 

"No.    Not  yet." 

I  wanted  to  stay  and  see  that  check.  It  was  for  a 
thousand  dollars.  Steve's  dream  of  a  career  in  New 
York  drew  suddenly  so  close  and  real  that  for  a  few 
moments  he  did  not  speak.  Silently  our  youngster  minds 
went  back  together  over  the  night,  and  the  curious  com 
pounding  of  reality  and  sham,  of  mystery,  of  agony  and 
of  grim  irony  in  it  all. 

"Life  sure  is  queer,"  said  Steve  at  last. 

"You  bet  it  is,"  I  answered. 


CHAPTER   II 

1. 

IT  was  not  until  three  years  later  that  Steve  and  I 
came  together  again. 

I  had  a  great  time  at  college — a  wonderful  time,  all 
by  itself.  I  did  little  work;  I  was  neither  a  student  nor 
was  I  one  of  those  intense  and  important  chaps  who 
rush  about  from  morning  till  night  engaged  in  the  busi 
ness  of  college  athletics,  the  Yale  News,  the  glee  club 
and  class  politics — but  I  lived  in  them  all.  I  gave  sage 
advice;  I  listened  and  talked;  I  smoked  and  gossiped 
half  the  night.  I  fairly  basked  in  the  joy  of  those  years 
• — "gliding  smoothly  swiftly  by."  Why  then  did  I 
break  away  at  the  beginning  of  senior  year? 

Mainly  because  of  my  father.  I  could  feel  that  Dad 
was  planning  to  have  me  go  to  work  in  his  mills,  and 
I  meant  to  get  ahead  of  him,  and  go  on  a  paper  in  New 
York.  I  felt  that  I  had  it  in  me  to  write.  In  college  I 
read  hungrily,  hit  or  miss,  all  kinds  of  short  stories, 
novels  and  plays.  But  to  sit  down  like  an  earnest  young 
soul  and  wrestle  with  the  art  of  writing  did  not  appeal 
to  me  in  the  least.  All  well  enough  for  a  girl  or  a  poet. 
For  me  a  real  man-sized  job  on  a  paper.  To  jump  in 
and  be  made  to  write,  to  feel  myself  part  of  a  big 
machine,  learn  at  first  hand  the  life  of  the  town,  grow 
wise  as  a  serpent,  swift  as  a  hawk,  dash  off  copy,  swoop 
about !  This  glamorous  picture  was  filled  in  by  the  many 
trips  I  made  to  New  York. 

On  these  train  rides  to  the  city,  slouching  comfortably 
down  into  a  seat  of  the  "smoker,"  I  would  stare  out  of 
the  window,  smiling  expectantly  to  myself  over  the  night 

25 


26  BLIND 

that  was  waiting  ahead.  A  gloomy  rainy  afternoon 
would  only  increase  my  anticipation.  As  my  train  rushed 
smoothly  on,  over  the  sodden  darkening  landscape  I 
would  watch  impatiently  for  the  glow  of  the  city  lights. 
.  .  .  Not  that  there  was  anything  very  wild  about  my 
adventures  there.  My  father  gave  me  plenty  of  money, 
and  vaguely  I  felt  that  he  rather  believed  in  sowing  the 
wild  oats  while  you  are  young.  But  although  I  saw 
wild  oats  enough — oats  as  wild  as  oats  could  be — I 
sowed  about  me  little  or  nothing  but  the  keen  shrewd 
smiling  looks  of  a  youngster  very  rapidly  and  self-con 
sciously  growing  "wise  to  the  town."  I  was  a  good  fel 
low  and  stuck  with  the  gang;  in  many  awful  places  I 
breathed  delightedly,  "God,  this  is  life!" — and  then 
went  home  and  slept  like  a  top.  For  I  was  a  chap  with 
the  habit  of  almost  always  putting  things  off — even  dissi 
pations — and  my  glad  existence  was  like  one  long  train 
ride  to  me,  bright  with  whirling  glimpses  of  the  life  I 
was  to  lead. 

That  this  would  be  unhampered  by  any  lack  of  ready 
cash  was  now  a  pleasing  certainty.  The  solid  old  Park 
Avenue  house  where  my  father  lived  with  his  gorgeous 
young  wife,  left  no  doubt  in  my  mind  as  to  that.  Money, 
position,  dinners,  dances,  week-end  parties  and  the  like 
— these  were  plainly  in  the  picture.  All  very  nice  and 
cozy.  But  I  would  not  be  a  snob,  nor  would  I  be 
inveigled  by  some  sweet  confiding  girl  into  marriage 
before  my  time.  No  sir,  I  proposed  to  get  this  whole 
great  thriller  of  a  town  into  the  picture  before  I  was 
through.  A  mixer  and  a  democrat.  A  rebel  against — 
I  didn't  know  what — but  a  rebel  all  right! 

Back  at  college,  in  one  of  my  rebel  moods,  I  created 
a  terrible  scandal  one  night.  There  were  several  secret 
societies  there,  the  pillars  of  our  college  life.  So  sacred 
were  their  meetings,  which  came  every  Wednesday 
night,  that  after  leaving  the  secret  halls  the  members 


BLIND  27 

were  bound  by  fearful  oaths  to  utter  no  word  again  that 
evening  either  to  each  other  or  to>  any  humbler  mortal. 
Solemnly  in  derby  hats  they  paraded,  those  great  broth 
erhoods,  from  their  halls  to  the  dormitories  where  they 
bade  each  other  a  silent  goodnight.  So  much  for  the 
gods.  Now  for  the  fiend.  From  a  blacksmith  I  pro 
cured  an  enormous  chain  and  padlock,  and  with  this 
one  Wednesday  night  I  chained  and  locked  the  iron 
gates  at  the  entrance  to  the  court  of  our  largest  dormi 
tory.  The  rumor  spread.  Heads  came  out  of  windows; 
eyes  looked  expectantly  up  the  street.  And  here  came 
the  first  batch  of  Olympians,  arm  in  arm,  in  their  derby 
hats.  They  came  to  the  gate  and  silently  stopped.  How 
to  get  to  their  rooms?  In  pantomime  they  tried  to  con 
sult,  and  one  of  them  went  for  the  janitor.  Another 
brotherhood  hove  in  sight — and  another  and  another; 
and  as  they  all  stood  waiting  there,  chuckles  were  heard 
from  the  windows  above,  and  a  drunken  senior  leaning 
out  kept  asking  the  most  sympathetic  questions  as  to 
their  awful  plight.  Majestic  silence.  The  janitor  came. 
More  gestures.  Off  he  went  for  an  axe.  More  chuckles, 
and  advice  from  the  senior.  College  tradition  crumbling 
fast.  When  the  janitor  returned,  my  padlock  proved  too 
stout  for  his  axe;  and  now  the  chuckles  waxed  and 
swelled  into  ribald  peals  of  mirth.  One  by  one  the  out 
raged  gods  climbed  in  through  lower  windows  and 
sneaked  quickly  to  their  rooms.  Busted  was  their  holi 
ness!  Social  positions  gone  to  pot!  With  several  "boon 
companions  I  feasted  joyously  that  night. 

And  as  I  was  a  rebel  in  college,  so  I  was  one  in  New 
York.  When  my  affable  young  stepmother  offered  to 
entertain  for  me,  I  declined.  I  had  not  come  to  town  for 
mere  conventional  affairs.  When  Lucy  was  home  from 
boarding  school  I  would  take  her  to  the  theatre,  and 
then  to  some  remote  cafe  for  a  forbidden  Bohemian 
feast  that  made  my  sister's  eyes  grow  round.  There 


28  BLIND 

was  no  end  to  the  devil  in  me.  I  took  her  one  night 
behind  the  scenes  at  a  musical  show  where  I  had  a 
friend,  an  enormous  man  at  whose  rubicund  visage  the 
whole  city  rocked  with  mirth.  I  had  other  friends,  an 
astonishing  lot,  but  I  can  barely  recall  them  now.  A 
stout  old  actress  lady  and  a  slim  young  one  from 
Detroit,  a  scene  shifter  at  Weber  and  Fields  who  was  a 
Christian  Scientist,  and  a  police  reporter — "Pop  Jehos- 
ophat"  he  was  called — a  dark  featured,  stout,  good- 
natured  Jew.  I  met  him  in  the  nick  of  time  when  I 
sorely  needed  aid  for  a  friend  who  had  unharnessed  a 
horse  from  a  cab  and  was  trying  very  earnestly  to  ride 
the  beast  into  a  cafe.  I  had  Pop  down  to  college  several 
times  in  the  following  year,  and  hungrily  learned  about 
life  on  a  paper.  Yes,  a  newspaper  job  for  me! 

But  I  loved  college  life  and  I  drifted  on,  and  I'm  not 
at  all  sure  that  I  would  not  have  drifted  on  into  my 
father's  mills,  if  it  had  not  been  for  an  uncanny  scare 
that  I  got  one  October  night.  It  had  nothing  to  do  with 
my  plan,  and  yet  it  gave  me  the  jerk  and  the  shock  that 
I  still  needed  to  pry  me  loose. 

To  the  theatre  in  our  college  town  there  came  one 
Saturday  evening  a  hypnotist,  whose  performance  inter 
ested  me  so  keenly  that  with  a  few  companions  I  took 
him  later  to  my  rooms,  where  he  used  his  psychic  power 
on  two  or  three  of  our  number.  When  he  left  he  turned 
to  me  and  said, 

"My  young  friend,  I  am  convinced  that  all  I  do  you 
can  do  yourself.  You  have  rare  powers  in  my  line." 

This  was  a  fascinating  thought.  And  on  the  follow 
ing  evening,  with  four  or  five  fellows  in  my  room,  I 
selected  a  slender  delicate  chap  and  fixing  him  with  a 
ferocious,  stare  I  launched  into  the  world  of  masic.  At 
first  I  had  little  or  no  success,  but  after  a  few  minutes  I 
saw  his  eves  grow  fixed  and  queer,  his  body  rigid  as 
a  post.  What  next?  I  grew  uneasy.  In  a  voice  a  bit 


BLIND  29 

unsteady  I  told  him  to  wake  up,  I  was  through.  But 
not  a  glimmer  in  those  eyes.  They  were  glassy  as  death. 
What  had  I  done?  To  what  mysterious  region  had  I 
consigned  this  chap  I  loved?  I  looked  at  my  friends. 
They  were  silent,  uneasy,  all  remote.  This  was  my  job 
— all  up  to  me !  And  what  knowledge  had  I  to  guide  me 
here?  For  all  I  knew  he  might  stay  in  this  state  for  days 
— might  even  die  of  it !  To  call  in  a  doctor  might  easily 
mean  my  expulsion  from  college.  Besides,  I  thought 
excitedly,  a  doctor  could  do  nothing  now.  I  had  got 
him  into  this  and  I  alone  could  get  him  out!  Suddenly 
I  felt  the  sweat  trickling  down  my  temples.  I,  who  was 
a  mixer,  had  mixed  this  fellow's  will  and  mine  and 
made  a  beastly  mess  of  it.  I  owned  him — owned  him 
— body  and  soul!  I  felt  weak,  exhausted,  faint.  "Cold 
feet!  Come  on  now,  be  a  man!"  I  glared  at  him  and 
gripped  his  hands  and  kept  repeating,  "Come  out  of 
this,  Danny — come  out  of  this  now!"  At  last  with  a 
rush  of  relief  I  saw  the  eyes  in  front  of  me  change  and 
glimmer,  grow  alive.  A  few  moments  more  and  he  was 
out,  while  I  sank  limply  into  a  chair. 

"Never  again,"  I  vowed  that  night,  "will  I  monkey 
with  this  kind  of  thing." 

A  weird  little  incident,  you  may  say,  but  hardly 
enough  to  change  a  man's  life.  I  reply  that  I  was  not  a 
man  but  a  half-baked  youngster  drifting-  alone;  and  that 
until  you  yourself  have  had  the  uncanny  sense  of  abso 
lute  power  and  loneliness  I  experienced  then,  you  can 
be  no  judee  of  its  effect.  That  ni°fht  I  took  a  long,  long 
walk,  and  my  thoughts  had  grown  amazingly  clear. 
What  did  I  really  want  in  life?  To  go  on  a  paper,  only 
that.  And  much  as  Dad  might  want  me  to  go  to  work 
in  his  tiresome  mills,  his  wish  was  not  half  so  intense  as 
mine.  He  had  his  own  life  to  absorb  him.  This  was  my 
life,  mine  alone.  Back  with  a  rush  came  the  memory  of 
how  desperately  alone  I  had  felt  in  the  incident  of  a  few 


30  BLIND 

hours  before.  Those  other  chaps  in  the  room — how 
remote — they  might  have  been  millions  of  miles  away. 
Each  one  of  us  riding  his  planet  through  space.  All 
right  then,  no  more  drifting!  Ride! 

The  following  week-end  I  went  home  to  Aunt  Amelia 
to  get  her  advice.  From  the  start  she  had  warmly 
approved  of  my  plan  to  become  a  writer.  "Oh,  Larry, 
dear,"  she  had  told  me,  "that's  what  I  have  wanted  to 
do  all  my  life !"  With  her  help  now  I  got  Dad's  consent. 
I  went  back  to  New  Haven  and  spent  a  few  days,  during 
which  more  than  once  I  was  sorely  tempted  to  let  things 
slide  and  go  on  as  before.  But  I  had  already  committed 
myself.  My  friend  Pop  had  found  me  a  job.  And  a  week 
later,  in  New  York,  I  went  on  his  paper  as  a  cub. 


2. 

Then  for  long  weeks  I  failed  and  failed,  and  I  was 
filled  with  a  grim  dismay.  My  wise  knowledge  of  the 
city  melted  as  I  rushed  about.  What  a  boundless  laby 
rinth  of  a  town.  What  scurrying  millions  of  men  and 
women,  half  of  them  barely  speaking  English.  What 
dull  faces  greeted  me,  what  suspicious,  cautious  eyes. 
How  to  get  the  facts  when  out  on  a  story?  How  to 
untangle  the  truth  from  the  lies  ?  How  to  write  it — how 
to  write?  ...  I  sat  at  a  long  narrow  table,  the  edge  of 
it  notched  and  whittled  deep.  Around  me  was  the  click 
and  hum  of  machines,  and  doors  kept  slamming,  and 
men  bustled  in  and  out.  Piles  of  paper  lay  knee  deep, 
and  at  times  a  boy  would  push  it  down  through  an  enor 
mous  hole  in  the  floor.  This  floor  shook  and  rumbled. 
Desperately  I  tried  to  write.  But  when  I  handed  in  my 
story  at  the  city  editor's  desk,  that  terrible  man  with' 
his  hard  brown  eyes  would  either  pencil  it  up  with  a 
sneer — or  worse,  he  would  shout  savagely  to  some  other 
member  of  the  staff, 

"Here,  Billy,  write  this — for  Christ's  sake!" 


BLIND  31 

Deep  and  utter  gloom  for  me.  Weddings,  funerals 
and  the  like  soon  became  my  daily  lot,  until  I  loathed 
the  very  thought  of  marrying  or  dying.  At  intervals 
I  would  get  a  chance  at  a  suicide  or  a  burglary.  Eagerly 
I  would  let  myself  out.  Blandly  he  would  cut  me  down 
— to  a  "stick"  or  a  tiny  paragraph — and  look  at  me 
hopelessly.  My  rebel  instinct  saved  me  then.  Was  he 
always  right,  I  always  wrong?  No,  by  God,  and  I 
would  show  him!  Feverishly  I  hunted  the  town.  To 
wring  out  of  its  coldness  warm  living  stuff  and  get  it 
past  that  editor's  desk,  I  worked  at  all  hours,  grew  thin 
as  a  rail.  And  then,  when  I  was  almost  done,  the  gods 
were  suddenly  kind  to  me. 

On  the  street  one  afternoon  I  met  my  old  friend, 
Steve  McCrea.  While  in  college  I  had  occasionally 
looked  him  up  in  his  hospital  here,  but  in  these  last  des 
perate  weeks  I  had  found  no  time  for  friends.  As  we 
stood  together  now,  in  response  to  his  questions  about 
my  work,  I  tried  to  put  a  good  face  on  it.  But  watching 
me  in  his  shrewd  quiet  way,  Steve  laid  his  hand  on 
my  shoulder. 

"The  place  for  you,  my  son,  is  in  bed." 

I  protested.  Though  I  had  been  feeling  infernally 
sick  for  the  last  few  days,  I  was  crossly  determined  not 
to  give  in. 

"You'll  have  to,  though."  He  felt  my  pulse.  "If  you 
won't  go  home,  come  along  with  me." 

Despite  my  further  protests  he  took  me  to  his  hospital 
and  put  me  to  bed  in  a  private  room.  That  evening  in  a 
quiet  talk  he  got  the  full  truth  out  of  me.  Then  he 
said, 

"All  right,  you're  making  good."  To  my  look  of 
surprise  he  answered,  "You've  found  that  any  job 
worth  while  is  like  a  cat's  claws  at  the  start.  You've 
stood  the  scratching  and  come  through.  I'll  bet  you're 
through  the  worst  of  it.  Forget  it  now  and  take  a  rest." 


32  BLIND 

These  words  from  Steve  were  like  a  drink  of  cool  clear 
water  to  me  then,  and  he  followed  it  up  by  telling  me 
about  his  own  experience.  At  the  start  he, .  too,  had 
found  it  hard.  In  the  hospital  the  pace  was  terrific — 
everyone  was  overworked;  and  finding  Steve,  the  tall 
young  giant,  only  too  ready  to  lend  a  hand,  some  of  the 
other  internes  began  to  load  their  work  on  him.  He 
slept  in  snatches.  Over  his  cot  was  a  loud  bell  that 
roused  him  by  its  call  for  help  at  any  hour,  day  or  night. 
In  that  small  world  with  its  acrid  smells,  its  silent  and 
unending  struggle  with  the  claws  of  death,  he  led  a 
weird  absorbing  life.  In  a  whirl  they  passed,  those  first 
swift  weeks;  and  then  like  a  smashing  blow  in  the  face 
one  night  came  the  realization  that  he  had  blundered 
with  his  knife.  A  man  lay  dead,  through  his  mistake. 
The  nurse  said  nothing.  Did  she  know?  He  went  back 
to  his  bed  and  lay  in  the  dark.  "I  nearly  quit  my  job 
that  night."  But  he  pulled  himself  together.  And  now 
as  he  watched  he  realized  that  he  was  not  alone  in  his 
blunder.  In  the  gossip  of  the  place  he  heard  of  other 
mistakes  in  plenty.  Young  internes — flippant,  over 
worked.  Free  patients  always  pouring  in,  many  so  hys 
terical  that  you  had  to  hold  'em  down.  Some  couldn't 
speak  English.  How  to  get  answers,  things  that  you 
must  learn  like  a  flash?  Guess  and  let  it  go  at  that. 
Couldn't  always  be  careful,  day  and  night,  sleep  or  no 
sleep.  Why  didn't  the  city  pay  more  for  the  job?  In 
those  days,  as  orderlies  they  were  still  using  convicts 
from  Blackwell's  Island — often  drunk.  Bedlam  would 
break  loose  in  the  wards.  What  a  hospital — what  a 
town!  What  a  science — struggling  on  in  the  dark! 

Steve  was  "riding  the  ambulance"  now.  On  breath 
less  August  evenings,  on  freezing  January  nights,  the 
ambulance  answered  calls  for  help  from  the  Tenderloin, 
from  the  theatre  crush,  from  big  hotels,  dark  tenements, 
or  from  the  ships  along  the  docks.  And  back  it  came 


BLIND  33 

with  inanimate  forms  in  which  was  locked  the  stuff  of 
life — its  comedies,  its  tragedies,  crimes  and  vices, 
schemes  and  dreams,  devotions  and  delusions — now 
silent  and  now  jibbering.  Often  the  driver  beat  up  his 
horse,  for  it  was  a  disgrace  in  the  hospital  world  not  to 
bring  in  your  man  alive.  If  he  died  on  the  way  you 
were  met  with  jeers. 

A  hard  cynical  streak  developed  in  Steve  as  he  grew 
wise  to  the  great  town.  The  old  feeling  of  disillusion* 
ment?  Yes.  But  the  worst  of  it  was  over.  For  each 
life  he  lost,  he  saved  a  score.  He  had  exceptional  hands 
for  the  knife,  and  attracted  the  notice  of  his  chiefs.  As 
the  months  went  on  he  began  to  see  that,  despite  the 
blunders  and  mistakes,  there  was  hard  clean  work  for 
the  most  part  here;  and  at  times  a  miracle  was  per 
formed  that  made  a  man  bow  down  to  his  science  and 
dream  dreams  of  all  it  could  do.  Death  had  scratched 
her  bloodiest.  Steve  could  feel  himself  getting  on. 

He  did  not  tell  me  all  this  at  the  time,  but  in  bits  he 
gave  me  enough  of  it  to  accomplish  his  purpose — to 
make  me  feel  that  my  own  little  struggle  was  nothing  to 
be  so  intense  and  solemn  about,  that  I  was  but  one  of 
the  thousands  from  all  over  the  U.  S.  A.  and  even 
from  across  the  sea  who  every  day  and  every  night 
poured  into  the  city  to  fight  for  a  place.  Fuel  for 
the  furnace — but  we  were  young.  And  I  was  through 
the  worst  of  it.  Though  I  had  no  proof  what 
ever  of  this,  I  had  a  certainty  that  it  was  so.  Some 
thing  tight  in  my  head  relaxed,  and  in  my  quick 
reaction  I  became  a  convalescent  so  genial  that  to  my 
bedside  came  internes,  nurses,  orderlies.  For  here  is  a 
secret  of  hospital  life.  A  laugh  is  quickly  multiplied.  To 
any  room  where  a  laugh  is  heard  come  people  from  all 
over  the  building.  So  a  hospital  keeps  itself  sane. 

My  brief  illness  at  an  end,  although  back  at  work  on 
the  paper,  I  put  in  every  spare  hour  here;  for  it  seemed 


34  BLIND 

to  me  that  I  had  turned  up  the  rich  new  vein  of  human 
stuff  for  which  I  had  been  searching — glimpses  from 
this  angle  back  deep  into  the  life  of  the  town,  into  the 
stories  that  lay  behind  the  fights  and  the  murders,  the 
feuds  of  gangs  and  the  wild  sprees  of  roisterers  come 
to  this  city  from  ranch  and  plain;  the  lonely  suicides  in 
hotels  or  down  along  the  river  front,  the  rescues,  the 
heroics  of  life  savers  of  all  kinds.  I  made  my  sketches 
brief  and  rough,  but  in  them  was  the  glamor  with 
which  I  was  looking  on  life  in  those  days.  My  editor 
was  not  enthused. 

"Death  has  been  done  to  death,"  he  remarked. 

But  I  was  not  to  be  discouraged.  Old  or  new,  this 
was  fresh  to  me.  In  a  month  or  so,  on  an  inside  page 
he  gave  me  a  column — "Behind  the  Knife."  And  by 
degrees  he  assigned  to  me  those  bigger  stories — actual 
news — celebrities  of  diverse  kinds,  men  and  women, 
rich  and  poor,  who  for  countless  human  reasons  killed 
or  stabbed  or  poisoned  or  tossed  lightly  out  of  windows 
their  own  bodies  or  those  of  their  friends.  The  hos 
pitable  hospital  gathered  them  in  and  patched  them  up 
for  appearance  in  court,  while  big  policemen  sat  by 
their  beds,  and  through  my  pen  the  ravenous  town  was 
fed  the  stories  of  their  lives.  Doctors  and  nurses  helped 
me  with  what  they  called  my  "headline  patients."  In 
return  I  had  nothing  but  praise  for  their  work.  And 
as  for  Steve,  I  dragged  into  my  yarns  the  name  of  "that 
brilliant  young  surgeon,  McCrea,"  until  the  hospital 
authorities  learned  of  it  and  called  a  halt.  Sternly  Steve 
forbade  me  to  give  him  more  publicity. 

"All  right,"  I  agreed  with  a  cheerful  grin.  "But  why 
are  all  good  doctors  snobs?  Here  I  hang  your  doctor's 
sign  where  it  can  be  seen  all  over  the  town ;  and  all  I  get 
for  it  is  a  'Stop' — when  the  thing  you  ought  to  do  at 
once  is  to  run  a  daily  'ad'  in  our  sheet  to  take  full  advan 
tage  of  what  I  have  done." 


BLIND  35 

He  gave  me  then  the  calm  disdain  of  a  surgeon  and  a 
scientist,  but  I  smiled  back  with  the  hardened  eyes  of  a 
cynical  old  reporter.  For  I  was  a  real  journalist 
now.  When  college  chums  came  down  to  town,  I  took 
them  about  and  sagely  talked  and  made  them  feel  how 
I  had  grown.  A  deeper  wider  mixer,  aged  twenty-one,  t 
tall,  stoop  shouldered,  homely,  lank,  with  a  ridiculous 
little  moustache  and  a  voice  even  deeper  than  before — 
entranced  with  my  freedom  I  ranged  the  town  and 
burned  the  candle  at  both  ends.  I  was  an  omniverous 
reader.  Kipling  was  my  favorite,  but  I  read  a  lot  of 
trash  as  well.  Reaching  home  about  one  in  the  morn 
ing  and  reading  in  bed  wrhen  I  knew  very  well  that  I 
should  have  been  sleeping,  I  would  scowl  at  the  admon 
ishing  hands  of  my  precise  old  fool  of  a  clock,  and  light 
ing  my  pipe  again  read  on.  Breakfast  in  bed  at  eleven 
and  down  to  my  paper  about  noon.  So  the  crowded 
winter  passed,  and  by  spring  I  was  nearly  ready  again 
for  a  bed  in  Steve's  hospital. 

Moreover,  Dad  was  worried  about  me.  More  than 
I  had  realized,  he  was  following  my  work.  He  had 
told  himself  that  he  hoped  I  would  fail,  but  uncon 
sciously  he  had  backed  me  to  win,  and  when  I  first  began 
to  make  good,  his  relief  and  satisfaction  were  almost  as 
great  as  mine.  In  a  casual  way  I  would  point  out  a  story 
of  mine  in  the  paper.  Casually  he  would  glance  it 
through  and  make  some  jocose  remark.  But  his  pride 
was  plain  to  see.  Later,  however,  as  he  saw  my  little 
successes  go  to  my  head,  he  grew  worried  over  the  life 
I  was  leading.  He  sized  me  up  as  the  sort  of  lad  who 
might  very  easily,  some  fine  day,  wake  up  and  find  him 
self  married  to  one  of  those  young  Broadway  birds  who 
swoop  at  the  sons  of  millionaires.  I  was  the  son  of  J. 
Carrington  Hart,  and  a  very  cocky  son  at  that,  gaily 
accepting  every  smile  as  a  tribute  to  my  own  beaux 
yeux  instead  of  my  father's  bank  account.  Moreover,, 


36  BLIND 

at  best,  my  drinking  and  smoking  and  talking  and  writ 
ing  were  wearing  this  lank  body  of  mine  down  to 
nothing  but  skin  and  bone. 

And  having  heard  me  speak  often  of  Steve,  my  father 
turned  to  him  for  help.  They  had  a  talk  about  my  case. 
Aunt  Amelia  was  in  it,  too;  and  if  Dad  still  had  an  idea 
of  my  taking  a  job  in  his  mills,  that  hope  was  promptly 
killed  by  my  aunt. 

"He  wouldn't  consider  it,"  she  declared,  "and  I  don't 
see  why  on  earth  he  should.  He  has  made  a  fine  start 
and  he  ought  to  go  on.  All  he  needs  is  someone  to 
steady  him." 

She  suggested  to  Steve  that  when  he  left  the  hospital 
in  June,  he  and  I  should  try  living  together  awhile. 
Steve  agreed,  and  went  on  to  tell  of  an  offer  he 
had  had  from  his  chief.  John  Bannard,  the  big  surgeon, 
was  a  pioneer  in  the  health  crusades  through  which, 
back  in  the  Nineties,  medical  men  were  just  beginning 
to  tackle  this  great  yowling  cat  of  a  town.  He  had  pro 
posed  that  under  his  guidance  Steve  should  spend  the 
following  year  down  in  a  crowded  tenement  block,  and 
make  a  careful  survey  of  the  ravages  of  T.  B. — which  is 
short  for  Tuberculosis.  Steve  had-  agreed,  and  he  felt 
now  that  the  idea  of  living  with  him  there  would  appeal 
to  my  hungry  writer's  soul,  and  that  a  look  into  that 
grim  world  might  tone  down  my  exuberance.  My 
father  was  against  it  at  first,  for  "the  slums"  were  con 
nected  with  strikes  in  his  mind;  but  Aunt  Amelia  stoutly 
declared  that  a  good  hard  honest  look  at  the  poor  could 
do  no  harm  to  anyone.  A  writer  should  learn  the  whole 
truth  about  life.  Then  she  brought  Dickens  into  the 
talk,  and  when  she  saw  that  this  idea  was  making  quite 
an  appeal  to  Dad  she  followed  it  up  by  dwelling  upon 
Steve's  steadying  influence.  In  the  end  my  father  gave 
in,  and  my  aunt  went  home  to  Seven  Pines  with  visions 
of  "Oliver  Twist"  in  her  head.  May  the  gods  reward  her 


BLIND  37 

for  that  day.  For  although  I  never  became  a  novelist,  as 
she  had  dreamed,  the  year  that  I  spent  in  that  tenement 
block  did  more  to  fill  in  the  picture  for  me  than  anything 
else  in  my  whole  life — the  picture  of  humanity  groping, 
struggling,  surging  on  to  war  and  revolution. 

One  night  not  long  after  that,  Steve  had  me  to  dinner 
with  his  chief;  and  to  us  youngsters  Bannard  talked  of 
the  changes  he  saw  coming.  He  spoke  of  the  rush  to  our 
cities  and  towns  of  people  from  all  over  the  earth,  of  the 
unbelievable  crowding  here  and  the  sharp  restlessness, 
discontent,  the  growth  of  wealth,  the  swiftly  awakening 
bitterness  among  the  poor.  To  head  it  off,  each  had  his 
part.  On  us  both  he  urged  that  while  we  were  still  young 
and  free  we  go  down  to  the  tenements  and  find  out  for 
ourselves  what  was  there. 

"You  won't  find  it  very  gloomy,"  he  smiled.  "You'll 
find  it  full  of  all  the  queerest  sparks  of  human  nature. 
Take  it  in  and  keep  your  heads.  You'll  meet  a  lot  of 
wild  ideas.  Duck  them.  Try  and  stick  to  facts.  For  the 
facts  have  in  'em  the  power  that  will  shake  the  world 
one  of  these  days." 

Gripped  by  curiosity,  I  was  more  than  ready  to  agree. 
And  Steve  and  I  began  to  plan  for  the  next  big  chapter 
in  our  lives. 


3. 

That  summer  I  got  a  month's  leave  from  my  paper  and 
came  to  Seven  Pines  for  a  rest.  In  the  meantime  Steve 
had  finished  his  course  and  came  back  to  the  village  for 
his  first  vacation  in  years.  Aunt  Amelia  welcomed  him 
to  the  house,  and  eagerly  she  entered  into  our  plans  for 
the  coming  year.  After  the  months  I  had  just  spent  in 
the  dizzy  fascinating  town,  it  was  good  to  be  back  in 
this  rambling  house  of  brick  and  frame  that  I  knew  so 
well.  Though  vaguely  aware  that  its  traditions  and  the 
things  it  stood  for  were  now  rapidly  passing  away,  still 


38  BLIND 

the  stout  planks  I  felt  under  my  feet  gave  me  a  sense 
that  despite  all  change  and  innovation  the  essential  spirit 
dwelling  here  was  not  dead  but  living  in  the  land.  Exactly 
what  that  spirit  was,  I  could  not  have  put  into  words. 
Democracy  in  work  and  play — let  everyone  prove  the 
stuff  that  was  in  him.  Religion  but  no  rigid  dogma. 
Tolerance,  openmindedness,  zest  and  hunger  for  new 
things  but  a  deep  sentiment  for  the  old.  Generous 
thoughts  and  feelings.  A  canny  shrewdness,  a  ready 
laugh.  Of  such  elements  the  spirit  of  this  house  and  this 
woman  had  been  made.  No  average  woman.  She  was 
one  of  those  whose  names  are  scarcely  ever  seen  in  print 
but  whose  influence  is  felt  by  hundreds.  Every  one  of  us 
has  known  a  few  of  these  great  Americans.  Aunt  Amelia 
was  one  of  mine. 

We  talked  to  her  by  the  hour  now — or  rather,  Steve 
sat  listening  and  throwing  in  a  word  at  times,  while  I 
did  the  talking  for  us  both.  With  what  fresh  vital  interest 
she  fed  the  expectancy  in  each  of  us  as  we  looked 
ahead  up  the  opening  vistas  of  our  lives.  What  a  listener, 
what  a  friend  for  all  young  people  and  their  plans!  .  .  . 
And  yet  my  aunt  was  growing  old.  In  speaking  of  the 
crowded  slums  she  gave  us  her  cure  for  the  troubles  there. 
Clean  out  the  cities,  send  such  people  out  to  the  prairies 
and  the  farms  to  build  free  splendid  lives  for  themselves 
and  for  their  children.  But  while  she  spoke,  with  a 
twinge  of  regret  as  at  something  gone  out  of  my  life, 
I  felt  that  the  West  of  her  distant  youth  was  already  for 
the  most  part  filled,  that  the  cities  and  towns  so  rapidly 
growing  marked  a  new  stage  in  our  national  life,  and 
that  my  aunt's  religion  was  quickly  being  left  behind. 

Even  here,  this  summer  would  see  perhaps  the  last 
reunion  of  those  she  had  reared.  Soon  Dorothy,  who  was 
twelve  years  old,  would  be  the  only  one  left  of  us  all — 
Aunt  Amelia's  children.  Did  she  feel  it,  too?  She  gave 
no  sign;  but  from  Dorothy  I  learned  how  her  mother 


BLIND  39 

and  she  had  excitedly  made  ready  for  our  coming.  If  this 
were  to  be  the  last  long  gathering,  she  was  resolved  it 
should  be  a  success. 

We  were  the  first  comers,  Steve  and  I.  For  a  week 
we  had  the  stage  to  ourselves,  and  then  my  cousin  Ed 
arrived.  Twenty  years  old,  a  stolid  good-humored  bull 
of  a  youngster,  looking  as  though  he  belonged  out  of 
doors — already  he  had  finished  his  course  at  the  agricul 
tural  college  in  the  quiet  town  in  Wisconsin  where  his 
mother  had  lived  as  a  girl.  In  a  few  months  more  he 
would  make  his  start  on  a  ranch  belonging  to  one  of  his 
uncles.  As  he  spoke  of  this  and  she  watched  him,  I 
thought  I  saw  in  his  mother's  face  a  twinge  of  realization 
and  wistful  regret.  "Young  man — go  west."  He  was 
one  of  the  last  in  that  mighty  migration  of  which  her 
own  youth  had  been  a  part.  A  new  era  of  crowded  cities 
was  here,  with  new  standards,  dreams,  ideals — or  rather, 
no  strong  new  ideals — old  anchors  loosed  and  everything 
changing,  all  in  a  stage  of  transition  now. 

My  sister  Lucy  was  like  that.  In  her  nothing  was 
settled,  nothing  sure.  Restless,  temperamental,  gay, 
demanding  and  receiving  attention  everywhere  she  went 
— when  she  arrived  at  Seven  Pines  she  at  once  took  the 
center  of  the  stage.  Lucy  was  now  twenty  years  old — 
dark,  slender,  undeveloped  still,  with  big  eyes  and  mobile 
features,  subtle  transformations  that  were  always  puzzling 
me.  Now  for  the  smallest  reason  she  would  be  ready  to 
flash  out  and  we  would  fight  like  cats  and  dogs;  again 
she  was  all  sisterly  love  and  we  would  have  long  quiet 
talks.  She  lived  most  of  the  winter  in  New  York;  and 
loving  Dad,  she  was  jealous  and  unjust  to  his  wife;  but 
in  vain  she  tried  to  make  her  the  stepmother  of  the  story 
books.  Aunt  Fanny  was  so  decent  to  Lucy,  getting  her 
clothes  and  "bringing  her  out,"  giving  dinners  and  dances 
for  her  friends — that  in  spite  of  her  hostility,  Lucy 
modelled  after  her  in  a  way  that  made  me  smile.  Saga- 


40  BLIND 

ciously  I  told  myself  that  now  I  had  my  sister  placed. 
But  after  going  about  like  mad  to  dinners  and  dances 
for  two  years,  she  began  to  get  sick  of  it,  restless  again. 
She  loved  to  come  out  to  Seven  Pines,  and  here  I  found 
a  different  girl,  modelled  on  Aunt  Amelia  lines.  She 
would  have  serious  talks  with  our  aunt,  and  she  would 
take  long  rides  with  me.  Young  Dorothy  adored  her, 
and  Lucy  loved  to  be  adored.  She  was  sensitive  to  what 
people  thought — I  mean  if  she  really  cared  for  them. 
And  here  with  her  aunt  and  her  cousin,  their  adoration 
and  belief  brought  out  the  best  things  in  her. 

Now  again  she  came  under  the  spell  of  the  house,  and 
her  coming  brought  an  instant  change.  She  was  the  one 
we  had  waited  for  to  start  this  last  reunion,  this  last 
gathering  while  we  were  young.  Each  of  us  felt  that 
very  soon  he  would  be  almost  hopelessly  old.  We  must 
make  the  most  of  life  while  it  lasted !  And  make  the  most 
of  it  we  did.  Deep  tides  and  streams  of  gaiety — now 
joyous,  swift,  now  deliciously  slow — were  felt  all  over 
this  happy  old  house.  There  was  indoor  baseball  out 
in  front,  under  the  wide  spreading  elms,  and  tennis  four 
somes,  tournaments,  swims  in  the  river,  rides  and  drives 
to  the  county  fair  and  to  dances  in  the  houses  upon  the 
surrounding  hills.  Various  friends  of  ours  arrived.  The 
house  was  packed  till  it  creaked  and  sighed.  I  recall  a 
tennis  game  at  night  which  was  a  little  idea  of  my  own. 
With  phosphorus  on  the  tennis  balls,  back  and  forth  they 
flew  like  stars.  Shrieks  and  breathless  voices.  Mid 
night  supper  in  the  house.  "There's  to  be  some  punch  to 
this  party !"  I  vowed,  and  I  went  to  the  piano.  "Put  out 
the  lights!"  I  shouted.  We  had  a  cotillion  in  the  dark! 

And  there  were  sunset  picnics  on  the  rocks  down  by 
the  Sound,  with  a  huge  bonfire  there  which  as  night  drew 
on  sent  fiery  messages  up  to  the  stars.  A  scene  for  seri 
ous  "two-some"  talks  and  songs,  good  old  ones — yes, 
God  help  me,  songs  of  my  day,  "before  the  war,"  None 


BLIND  41 

of  this  jazz  or  ragtime.  For  dances,  Sousa  two-steps; 
for  sentiment,  Seeing  Nelly  Home.  Then  there  was  Danc 
ing  at  Oddfellow's  Hall,  and  Suwanee  River,  Old  Black 
Joe  and  Oh,  That  Little  Old  Red  Shawl.  What  is  there 
now  to  take  their  place  ?  I  have  wonderful  ears  for  hear 
ing,  in  these  silent  nights  alone;  and  often  when  the 
honk  and  thunder  of  an  automobile  has  passed,  I  seem 
to  hear  a  more  leisurely  sound,  compounded  of  the  thud 
of  hoofs,  the  rattle  of  wheels,  the  strum  of  guitars  and 
a  rich  swelling  harmony  of  gay  singing  voices  Unreal 
and  ghostly.  That  is  gone. 

But  enough  of  my  sentimental  ears!  In  those  days, 
when  her  mother  would  let  her,  young  Dorothy — who 
was  as  round  as  before,  a  stout  little  girl  curly  headed 
and  blonde,  with  an  anxious  air  of  enormous  importance 
— eagerly  trailed  after  us.  With  Lucy  she  adored  to 
have  long  joyous  talks  in  corners.  The  two  would 
whisper  and  giggle  till  you  would  have  thought  them 
both  of  an  age.  And  emerging  from  such  confabs, 
Dorothy's  shining  vivid  blue  eyes  would  eagerly  rove 
from  her  cousin  to  every  young  man  in  the  room.  Not 
a  sign  of  a  romance  yet,  but  she  watched  on  excitedly. 

I  had  not  had  a  chance  at  Lucy  alone,  but  both  of  us 
knew  that  before  very  long  we  would  certainly  take  a 
long  ride  together.  It  had  to  be  done.  We  never  missed. 
And  so,  one  lovely  afternoon,  we  mounted  our  horses, 
(gifts  from  Dad)  for  a  twenty  mile  ride  back  through 
the  hills.  And  after  a  few  good  canters,  we  walked  our 
horses  and  we  talked. 

At  first  we  spoke  of  the  giddy  dance  Aunt  Fanny  was 
leading  poor  old  Dad.  She  was  getting  ready,  Lucy  said, 
to  make  him  build  in  Newport  soon.  I  snorted.  Things 
were  getting  pretty  rotten  in  this  country.  Steve  was  one 
of  the  last  of  those  who  could  fight  their  way  up  from 
the  bottom,  I  said,  and  the  masses  were  all  getting  sore. 
Strikes  and  slums  and  anarchists — and  on  top,  the  mil- 


42  BLIND 

lionaires.  Look  at  us.  From  Aunt  Amelia's  home,  which 
was  the  good  old  American  stuff,  where  were  we  going? 
I  to  the  slums.  Lucy  to  the  society  crowd. 

'That's  America,"  I  said  gloomily.  Then  Lucy's  voice 
with  a  chilling  note: 

"You  talk  as  though  I  liked  it." 

"Like  what?"  I  had  forgotten  her.  I  was  thinking  of 
what  a  great  writer  I'd  be.  How  I  would  thunder  at  it 
all!  My  sister  answered  sharply. 

"The  life  I  have  back  there  in  town." 

"You  do  like  it." 

Angry  silence.   Then  she  gave  a  sudden  laugh. 

"How  young  you  are!" 

I  started — frowned. 

"I  am,  am  I?" 

"Very!" 

"How  am  I?" 

This  started  a  long  'discussion  on  what  we  meant  by 
being  young.  Steve  was  dragged  in.  He  was  twenty- 
seven.  I  seemed  "a  mere  child"  beside  him,  she  said.  I 
asked  her  to  prove  it.  We  analyzed  Steve  and  then  Aunt 
Amelia.  She  would  always  be  young,  we  agreed.  We 
analyzed  ourselves  and  the  nation — youthfully  and 
solemnly — and  came  back  to  the  fact  that  we  were  young. 

Then  Lucy  gave  her  horse  a  cut  and  we  raced  joyously 
down  the  road.  Around  a  turn  we  met  a  steam  roller. 
Both  horses  swerved  and  Lucy  was  thrown.  In  a  farmer's 
buggy  I  took  her  home.  She  had  broken  her  arm,  and 
Steve  set  it  that  evening,  while  she  clinched  her  teeth 
and  smiled.  Once  or  twice  she  whispered,  "Damn!" 
Even  to  a  brother  she  looked  rather  oeautiful — and  Steve 
was  having  no  easy  cirpe.  When  he  hurt  her,  he  went 
rather  white;  though  he  kept  smiling  all  the  while  and 
talking  in  a  low  steady  voice.  He  had  not  been  much 
with  Lucy  here.  All  that  he  had  heard  from  me  about 
her  giddy  doings  in  town  had  made  her  a  figure  so 


BLIND  43 

remote  from  the  hospital  world  in  which  he  lived.  This 
sudden  intimacy  was  a  jolt.  And  Lucy  made  the  most 
of  it.  In  the  days  that  followed,  she  took  a  devilish  delight 
in  this  doctor-and-patient  business.  She  treated  him  with 
a  deep  respect,  mischievous  flashes  in  her  eyes.  And 
poor  old  Steve  was  taking  it  hard.  Despite  his  friendly 
casual  tone  and  the  jokes  with  which  he  tried  to<  meet 
that  maddening  deference  of  hers,  I  could  feel  he  was 
swearing  under  his  breath. 

I  was  not  the  only  observer.  Young  Dorothy  looked 
eagerly  on.  Not  a  word  or  a  look  or  a  quiver  escaped 
her.  Breathlessly  she  confided  to  me  that  the  two  were 
"madly  in  love  with  each  other.  I'm  positive — perfectly 
positive!"  And  off  she  pranced  to  peek  through  the 
door  After  this,  she  made  herself  just  as  helpful  as  she 
could  be.  Anxiously,  before  he  came,  she  would  suggest 
to  Lucy  what  gown  to  wear,  a  brooch,  a  ribbon,  a  new 
way  of  doing  her  hair.  She  would  do  this  in  the  most 
casual  way.  And  by  merest  accident,  too,  she  would 
meet  Steve  upon  the  stairs  and  abruptly  she  would  drop 
remarks.  She  was  at  her  piano  practice  one  afternoon 
when  he  arrived — and  at  once  she  began  to  play,  "Drink 
to  Me  Only  With  Thine  Eyes."  In  brief,  she  encour 
aged  this  affair  with  a  conspicuous  secrecy  that  told  the 
very  trees  outside,  "They  are  madly  in  love  with  each 
other!"  Lucy,  of  course,  was  highly  amused,  and  even 
encouraged  the  fat  little  imp.  Steve  shortened  his  visits 
to  the  house. 

•But  when  her  arm  was  out  of  the  cast,  Lucy  all  of  a 
sudden  grew  very  nice  and  friendly.  She  asked  Steve  to 
stay  to  supper,  and  she  insisted  until  he  gave  in.  Aunt 
Amelia  was  away  and  Dorothy  was  sent  to  bed.  And 
giving  us  coffee  in  front  of  the  fire,  in  the  most  friendly 
way  in  the  world  she  inquired  about  our  plans,  what 
vkind  of  a  place  we  were  going  to  live  in,  just  how  we 
meant  to  furnish  the  rooms  and  get  our  meals.  She 


44  BLIND 

laughed  at  our  answers,  called  us  "poor  lambs,"  and 
offered  to  help.  She  became  serious,  talked  of  Steve's 
work  and  grew  sympathetic,  much  impressed  at  the 
thought  of  the  lives  he  would  help  to  save.  And  she  did 
it  nicely,  sensibly.  She  threw  no  embarrassing  halo  about 
him.  Instead,  she  envied  him  his  job  and  contrasted  his 
life  with  her  own.  Without  saying  too  much,  she  made 
him  feel  how  discontented  she  was  with  her  life,  made 
him  feel  her  warm  and  intimate,  with  a  beauty  and  a 
temperament  such  as  he  had  never  known.  She  played 
the  devil  with  poor  Steve. 

And  she  left  the  next  day  for  a  house  party  over  on 
Long  Island. 


CHAPTER  III 

1. 

I  AM  finding  that  this  book  of  mine,  a  crowded,  rest 
less  narrative,  is  to  turn  this  way  and  that,  its  personal 
figures  seized  upon  by  influences  from  outside,  its  story 
often  left  on  the  road  while  it  wanders  into  enormous 
fields  of  life  for  certain  memories  which  in  my  present 
state  of  mind  take  hold  upon  my  interest.  So  in  this 
chapter  it  will  be. 

Down  into  "the  slums"  to  live  for  a  year.  There  was 
"punch"  to  that.  I  was  twenty-one.  What  did  I  know 
of  poverty?  My  newspaper  work  had  given  me  only 
glamorous  glimpses  of  that  long  tedious  desperate  drama 
which  is  entitled  "Being  Poor."  But  even  in  those  callow 
days,  I  did  not  go  down  to  the  poor  to  "uplift"  them; 
I  went  for  what  I  considered  then  a  perfectly  good  and 
legitimate  reason — to  dig  stories  out  of  their  lives. 
And  if  those  stories  and  those  lives  could  make  me  any 
wiser  to  the  truth  about  the  town,  I  was  quite  ready  to 
be  shown.  Vaguely  I  had  heard  about  the  socialists  and 
anarchists.  A  little  exploration  now  into  something  dark 
and  grim,  but  tense  and  fascinating,  too. 

Not  to  be  discouraged  by  the  tall  bare  tenement  build 
ings,  stinking  streets  and  dirty  crowds,  every  hour  I 
could  spare  I  spent  in  exploring  the  neighborhood  where 
Steve  was  to  do  his  work;  and  toward  the  end  of  August 
I  found  a  promising  place  for  our  home.  Our  rooms 
looked  on  a  little  square  which  extended  down  to  the 
river  front,  to  a  ferry  house  with  wharves  on  each  side, 
steamers,  tugs  and  barges,  fishing  schooners  and  "deep 
water"  sailing  craft — the  last  of  their  kind — their  great 

45 


46  BLIND 

bowsprits  reaching  in  over  the  street.  Here  were  little 
restaurants,  shops,  saloons  and  brothels.  At  night  weird 
cries  and  songs  were  heard,  and  sometimes  a  shot  rang 
out.  High  over  all  reared  the  dark  sweeping  arch  of  the 
Bridge  against  the  stars.  In  the  tenements  close  by  were 
people  from  all  over  the  world.  Seventeen  nationalities 
were  packed  into  a  single  block.  Here  indeed  was  the 
melting  pot! 

I  had  rented  an  old  sail-loft  up  over  a  ship  chandlery. 
Under  my  direction,  plumbers  and  carpenters  went  to 
work;  and  when  they  got  through,  the  dim  dusty  old 
loft  had  become  a  kind  of  studio — with  a  couple  oi  bed 
rooms  and  a  bath  and  a  kitchenette  built  in  behind.  I 
discovered  a  Danish  woman  nearby  who  agreed  to  come 
and  cook  for  us.  To  heat  the  studio  I  procured  a  tall 
monster  of  a  stove,  and  on  the  walls  I  hung  dusky  old 
pictures  of  ships  that  I  found  in  the  neighborhood.  And 
I  found  ancient  seamen's  chests  and  outlandish  vases, 
strings  of  old  ship  signal  flags.  After  the  whole  scene  . 
was  set,  I  lit  the  lamps  and  then  my  pipe,  and  settled 
down  with  a  sigh  of  content.  Steve  said,  "It'll  do,"  and 
went  to  bed.  To  my  imprecations  he  called  back. 

"I  like  it,  sonny — damn  fine  place.  But  I'm  dead  tired. 
Me  for  the  slats." 

He  had  already  begun  his  survey  of  the  big  tenement 
block  close  by.  Several  generations  ago,  the  buildings 
there  had  been  the  homes  of  the  "best  families"  in  New 
York.  Now  they  were  rotting  to  decay.  In  the  small 
yards  behind  them,  more  tenements  had  been  built  in, 
leaving  rear  courts  that  were  nothing  but  wells.  The 
privies  were  there,  and  bedraggled  children,  babies,  cats, 
and  a  few  peevish  hens.  Year  by  year  the  air  and  sun 
light  had  been  crowded  out  of  the  block.  The  spacious 
rooms  of  the  old  mansions  had  been  divided  long  ago  into 
cramped  little  chambers,  where  T.  B.  germs  by  millions 
thrived.  In  a  slow  deliberate  accurate  way  Steve  traced 


BLIND  47 

the  records  of  these  rooms;  and  the  story  of  each  rotten 
old  flat  read  in  his  record  something  like  this : 

"1891 — Sweeney  family  in.  Man  heavy  drinker — 
contracted  T.  B. — lost  job — family  moved  out.  1892— 
Harmon  family  in — man,  wife,  mother  and  two  children 
— wife  contracted  Pul.  T.  B. — refused  hospital — child 
T.  B.  Laryngitis — family  out.  1894 — Schwartz  family 
in — widower,  sister  and  five  children — baby  and  two 
children  contracted  T.  B. — two  dead — i  cripple — family 
out.  1896 — Giuseppi  Manetti  and  wife — bride  and  groom 
— wife  pregnant — T.  B.  complications — mother  and  child 
both  died — man  out." 

So  ran  these  naked  histories — definite  proofs  that  the 
Great  White  Plague,  instead  of  being  a  hopeless  heredi 
tary  disease,  was  contracted  through  infection  and  could 
be  done  away  with.  A  message  of  hope — and  a  challenge. 

"Once  we  have  driven  it  home,"  said  Steve,  "it's  up 
to  the  people  to  do  the  rest; — clean  out  these  stinking 
tenements.  I  wonder  if  they  care  a  damn?"  Then  he 
looked  at  me  with  a  bright  idea.  "Why  don't  you  have 
a  try  at  this  ?  Help  us  reach  the  public  mind.  Take  these 
records,  the  dry  bones,  and  dress  'em  up  in  flesh  and 
blood.  Make  these  little  corpses  talk,  and  tell  how  they 
were  murdered  by  the  town.  Write  some  thrillers." 

And  I  did.  I  persuaded  my  editor  that  this  was  the 
start  of  a  big  crusade,  that  our  paper  ought  to  take  the 
lead.  And  I  spent  my  days  and  nights  in  the  block,  in 
and  out  of  those  dark,  stuffy  rooms — while  Steve,  to 
my  immense  disgust,  made  me  drink  a  quart  of  milk  and 
take  a  half  dozen  raw  eggs  a  day.  From  neighbors, 
priests,  policemen,  druggists,  I  filled  in  the  records  with 
their  memories  of  the  dead.  And  I  talked  with  the  dying. 
Nearly  all  of  them  clung  to  the  hope  that  this  was  only 
a  common  cough.  Even  those  who  lay  on  their  beds  and 
fought  for  breath  held  on  to  that  hope  like  a  gleaming 
cross — till  the  priest  arrived  with  the  crucifix. 


48  BLIND 

"It  used  to  be  called  the  Long  Block,"  I  wrote  in  my 
first  article.  "The  people  call  it  the  Lung  Block  now." 

This  was  a  lie,  for  the  new  name  was  my  own  inven 
tion.  But  it  took  hold  and  stuck  to  the  place,  to  the  right 
eous  indignation  of  every  landlord  round  about.  My 
stories  were  read  by  the  citizens,  and  soon  I  was  known 
through  the  neighborhood.  Promptly  I  was  invited  to 
join  the  genial  district  club  that  ran  the  local  politics;  and 
two  young  socialist  tailors,  mere  boys,  enticed  me  into 
a  cafe  and  there  in  a  long  fervid  talk  urged  me  to  join 
their  brotherhood  and  free  the  world  from  slavery.  But  I 
was  too  absorbed  in  this  block  to  have  time  for  the  whole 
•world's  salvation.  Here  were  a  dozen  men,  women  and 
kids  who  had  become  good  friends  of  mine  and  were 
slowly  dying  of  T.  B.  What  could  I  do?  After  much 
trouble  I  secured  a  free  bed  in  a  hospital  uptown,  and 
one  afternoon  I  took  a  thin  little  Jewish  tailor  up  on 
the  Third  Avenue  El.  On  the  ride  he  was  silent,  he 
looked  at  his  hands.  He  had  a  fat  wife  and  five  children. 
He  was  twenty-six  years  old.  At  the  hospital  when  they 
stripped  him,  I  wished  I  had  not  stayed  in  the  room.  A 
little  skeleton,  thin  as  a  rail,  skin  drawn  tightly  over  the 
bones. 

"Gloomy  stuff,  this/'  I  wrote  that  evening.  "Yes,  my 
friend,  but  you'll  have  to  bear  up  under  it,  sitting  in  your 
easy  chair." 

I  was  bitter  that  night.  I  had  no  faith  in  world-wide 
revolution  then — all  such  talk  seemed  piffle  to  me.  The 
people  uptown  were  the  only  ones  who  could  clean  up 
this  mess,  and  they  didn't  care.  And  so  in  my  story  I 
stormed  a  bit  and  made  that  little  living  corpse  say  bitter 
things  to  this  land  of  the  free.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  he 
had  said  only  "nein."  He  would  not  stay  in  the  hospital, 
and  on  the  El  he  sat  by  my  side  quite  motionless,  looking 
at  his  skinny  hands.  After  his  death  I  got  money  from 
Dad  and  shipped  his  family  out  to  St,  Joe,  where  they 


BLIND  49 

had  some  relatives.  I  used  what  money  I  could  raise  on 
other  T.  B.  citizens.  But  what  an  exasperating  lot!  Fix 
it  all  up  for  a  hospital  bed.  The  proposed  patient  would 
shake  his  head  and  die  with  his  wife  and  children,  mean 
while  giving  them  his  disease. 

"The  hospital  is  a  bad  place,  my  boy,"  said  one  old 
Irish  woman.  "Have  ye  heard  of  the  Black  Bottle  now? 
It's  that  the  doctors  make  ye  drink  when  they're  sick  of 
seein'  yez  around.  Then  ye  die — like  as  not  without  any 
priest." 

A  trip  to  the  country  was  not  so  bad.  It  was  hard  to 
get  grown  "lungers"  to  go,  but  they  would  often  send  a 
sick  child  if  the  money  was  forthcoming.  Still,  even  here, 
there  were  stumbling  blocks.  In  November  I  had  it 
arranged  to  send  a  little  Irish  girl  to  a  sanitarium 
up-State;  but  first,  on  Steve's  orders,  I  took  her  to  a 
dispensary  nearby,  to  have  her  adenoids  out.  Years 
later  I  saw  this  operation  performed  on  a  small  half- 
brother  of  mine.  That  kid  had  two  doctors  and  a  nurse, 
and  they  gave  him  ether.  This  kid  was  simply  put  down 
in  a  chair,  was  seized  and  held,  and  while  she  screamed 
like  a  wild  little  beast  the  adenoids  were  torn  out  of  her. 
She  went  stone  deaf  the  following  week. 

Blame  that  doctor?  Not  at  all.  He  was  young  and 
poor,  he  was  over-worked,  and  he  did  this  sort  of  thing 
free  of  charge,  because  the  town  wouldn't  pay  enough  to 
have  such  jobs  done  decently.  Why  should  the  doctors 
give  themselves?  Nobody  else  did.  How  about  me? 
Yes,  I  actually  worked  for  awhile  and  maybe  I  saved  a 
life  or  two.  But  meanwhile  I  was  writing  all  this,  build- 
Ing  up  my  own  career.  And  back  in  my  lamplit  studio, 
engrossed  in  the  writing  I  would  get  rid  of  the  dull  and 
commonplace  despair.  To  get  the  "punch"  and  color  I 
would  haunt  those  sinister  rooms  with  ghosts — those  of 
the  present  quite  ignored  by  the  fastidious  fantoms  of  a 
hundred  years  ago,  I  would  catch  the  faint  clear  echoes 


50  BLIND 

of  the  stately  minuet.  Some  of  those  ghastly  wrecks  of 
homes  still  had  the  beautiful  doorways  of  the  late  Colonial 
days — "doorways  leading  in  to  death."  With  a  blush  I 
heard  my  editor's  growl : 

"Look  here,  Larry,  cut  this  out.  Ghostly  figures  are 
O.  K. — but  nix  on  the  death  stuff.  Understand  ?  Repres 
sion,  my  boy.  You're  learning,  though — coming  on  pretty 
fast."  And  with  an  envious  grunt  he  said,  "Wish  7  were 
your  age." 

That  was  it — I  was  young.  And  though  I  learned 
repression  now,  it  only  made  the  more  fresh  and  deep  the 
exuberant  fancy  underneath.  Even  old  Steve  could  say 
things  that  would  give  me  sudden  ideas.  One  muggy 
night  the  end  of  October,  he  rose  and  wearily  stretched 
himself. 

"God,"  he  muttered,  "how  I  wish  that  one  of  those 
great  winds  we  knew,  when  we  were  kite-flying  kids  at 
home,  would  come  with  a  rush  and  a  roar  and  a  yowl  into 
this  stinking  city  block." 

And  in  the  studio  half  the  night,  I  sat  writing,  "A 
Great  Wind."  I  pictured  a  mighty  wind  from  the  sea 
sweeping  into  the  stifling  town  and  working  countless 
miracles — cooling  ugly  tempers  down,  giving  life  and 
hope  to  the  dying,  and  to  all  the  self  important  scurrying 
little  pigmies  here  bringing  visions  of  the  stars.  People 
had  grown  small  and  mean.  I  remembered  what  my 
aunt  had  said  about  the  generous  passions  born  in  the 
years  of  the  Civil  War.  Gone  and  forgotten.  Petty 
people,  sordid  times,  dreams  of  the  dollar  and  nothing 
beyond  it.  Yes,  great  winds  were  needed  now. 

"I'll  keep  this  sketch,"  I  told  myself,  "until  some  fine 
big  windy  night — then  turn  it  in." 


2. 

I  was  through  with  writing  of  T.  B.   For  two  months 
I  had  cried  the  shame  of  the  Lung  Block  from  the  house- 


BLIND  51 

tops.  I  had  done  my  bit,  and  I  did  not  propose  to  get 
morbid  and  see  things  out  of  proportion.  So  I  turned  to 
the  ships  close  by.  By  day  and  by  night,  from  the  far 
corners  of  the  heaving  ocean  world  came  seamen,  stokers, 
engineers,  cooks,  cabin  boys — and  I  met  quite  a  few;  for 
the  stout  Danish  woman  who  cooked  for  us  took  sailor 
boarders  in  her  flat  just  around  the  corner.  Though  a 
deeply  religious  Lutheran  who  could  spend  an  hour  on 
her  knees  and  get  up  fresh  as  a  daisy,  she  was  a  woman 
of  liberal  views,  and  she  mothered  these  lads  in  a  way 
of  her  own.  When  a  sailor  came  ashore,  she  would  give 
him  a  good  hot  supper;  and  while  he  told  his  story,  a 
few  stiff  drinks  could  do  him  no  harm.  Then  if  she  could 
start  him  off  with  a  friend  to  a  good  stiff  prize  fight 
somewhere,  the  chances  were  that  after  the  fight,  well 
tired  out,  he  would  come  straight  back  and  go  to  bed. 
When  she  was  able  to  put  through  this  little  religious 
program,  she  would  be  happy  as  a  lark.  For  didn't  she 
know  the  she-devils  about,  who  would  rob  a  poor  sailor 
of  his  last  cent? 

Yes,  she  knew  the  life  of  the  sea.  Starting  as  a  cap 
tain's  wife,  on  tossing  ships  she  had  nursed  the  sick  and 
heard  their  last  confessions.  She  knew  the  tricks  of 
quarantine;  she  knew  the  ways  of  epidemics.  In  India 
she  had  fought  the  Plague,  the  Cholera  in  Egypt.  As  a 
nurse  she  had  taken  part  in  the  Gordon  Relief  Expedi 
tion.  Later  she  had  settled  down  in  one  port  after 
another;  and  in  these  ports  she  had  mothered  her  boys 
until  now  she  had  a  family  of  wanderers  from  all  over 
the  world,  who  would  drop  in  at  her  small  flat  with 
stories  to  tell  and  gifts  for  her — shawls,  queer  vases, 
heathen  gods,  old  rings  and  brooches,  tiny  ships,  dolls, 
babies'  shoes,  and  last  letters  from  lads  who  had  died  in 
distant  ports.  Around  these  things  were  clustered  tales 
of  the  world  of  wanderlust.  And  I  wrote  them  under  the 
title,  'The  Things  in  Mrs.  Dagmar's  Flat," 


52  BLIND 

There  was  one  little  book  that  had  been  left  by  a  tall 
serious  engineer.  Its  pages  were  soiled  and  thumbed  with 
reading.  Its  title  was,  "Good  Manners  Ashore."  I 
remember  one  chapter,  "A  Dinner  Party,"  wherein  you 
were  directed  to  begin  your  conversation  by  turning  to 
the  guest  at  your  side  and  affably  remarking, 

"So  you,  too,  are  a  friend  of  our  charming  hostess." 

What  hands  had  thumbed  those  pages  so? 

As  I  delved  into  the  neighborhood,  the  word  "slums" 
dropped  out  of  my  mind,  and  with  it  any  vestige  of  my 
fancied  superiority.  When  a  certain  wretched  yellow 
sheet  ran  a  story  on  how  the  son  of  J.  Carrington  Hart, 
the  millionaire,  had  gone  to  live  among  the  poor,  I  took 
this  story  over  to  the  political  club  down  there,  and  while 
the  songsters  in  the  club  hummed  a  sweet  low  accom 
paniment  I  solemnly  chanted  the  noble  words  which  the 
woman  reporter,  who  had  never  seen  me,  quoted  as  mine 
in  the  interview : 

"It  shall  be  my  aim  to  live  for  awhile — down  among 
the  lowly — and  bring  a  little  sunshine — to  those  whose 
lives  are  full  of  clouds." 

A  roar  of  laughter  from  the  poor.  Then  somebody 
ordered  up  the  drinks  and  they  sang,  "For  He's  a  Jolly 
Good  Fellow." 

Here  was  the  gang  in  politics,  a  baffling  mixture  of 
good  and  bad.  The  club  leader,  a  young  Irishman,  was 
tall,  slender  and  clean  cut.  I  never  saw  him  drink  or 
smoke.  His  only  vice  was  gambling.  He  sat  in  frequent 
little  games  and  was  well  known  out  at  the  tracks.  I 
remember  him,  one  autumn  night,  coming  back  from  the 
races  to  the  club.  Walking  rapidly  down  the  long  pool 
room,  he  threw  remarks  this  way  and  that.  "All  right, 
Jim,  I  saw  the  Judge" — "Say  Tony,  I  landed  that  job 
for  your  brother" — and  so  on  all  the  way  down  the  line. 
At  the  end  of  the  room  on  a  low  platform  I  sat  with  him 
at  his  desk  while  he  went  through  his  evening  mail. 


BLIND  53 

There  were  nearly  a  hundred  letters  that  night.  Men 
wanting  jobs  for  themselves  or  their  friends,  wives  whose 
husbands  were  in  jail,  widows  who  could  not  pay  the 
rent,  all  appealed  to  the  boss  for  aid.  In  other  letters 
were  tickets  to  tenement  balls  and  other  affairs;  and  not 
only  would  he  buy  the  tickets,  but  he  or  one  of  his 
henchmen  would  be  present  at  each  affair.  For  he  and 
his  kind  were  mixers.  They  not  only  did  things  for  their 
friends  but  did  them  in  human  intimate  terms.  And 
though  the  power  thus  secured  was  used  to*  steal  the 
public  money  and  protect  the  landlords  of  foul  old  tene 
ment  buildings,  brothels,  "creep  holes,"  gambling  dives 
— still  they  kept  in  power.  Why? 

Because  the  reformers  from  uptown,  gentlemen  who 
now  and  then  tried  to  clean  up  the  city,  were  not  mixers 
but  uplifters.  Did  they  care  to  eat  or  drink,  laugh  or  sing 
or  dance  with  the  poor?  No,  they  simply  exhorted  them 
to  be  good  and  vote  for  reform.  And  when  the  benighted 
poor  refused  to  be  uplifted,  the  gentlemen  sighed  and 
went  back  uptown;  and  in  commerce  and  in  high  finance 
they,  too,  did  favors  for  their  friends  at  the  expense  of 
the  public.  So  the  genial  gang  idea  ran  through  the 
warp  and  woof  of  life  in  American  cities,  east  and  west, 
until  in  high  circles  as  in  low  the  word  "graft"  became 
a  familiar  term.  And  there  were  millions  of  nameless 
victims  who  in  poverty  undeserved,  and  in  vice,  disease 
and  death,  paid  the  vast  grim  price  of  it  all. 

3. 

I  helped  the  "Sporting  Parson"  in  his  boys'  club  down 
the  street.  In  the  past,  from  Minnesota  to  Maine  this 
big-hearted  preacher  had  tramped  his  way  through  the 
northern  lumber  camps.  Here  he  had  a  couple  of  rooms, 
where  every  night  some  forty  boys  met  to  shout  and  sing 
'round  an  old  piano,  and  to  fight.  For  the  Sporting  Par 
son  had  broad  views.  We  would  chalk  a  ring  on  the  floor, 


54  BLIND 

and  within  it  two  lads  who  had  put  on  the  gloves  would 
go  at  each  other,  cheered  by  the  crowd.  Dimes,  nickels 
and  pennies  quickly  changed  hands.  Faces  grew  bloody. 
Deafening  din!  So  this  minister  of  the  gospel  shielded 
his  little  flock  from  harm.  Vigilantly  he  would  watch 
for  foul  play.  With  a  roar  he  would  grab  the  offender. 

"If  any  feller  thinks  he  can  hit  below  the  belt — or  use 
his  knees  or  a  knife,"  he  would  shout,  "and  get  away 
with  it  in  this  club,  he's  mistaken !  Understand  ?" 

Night  after  night  and  week  after  week,  he  taught  the 
principles  of  fair  play  to  the  toughest  and  the  wildest 
youngsters  in  the  neighborhood. 

"The  way  to  succeed  with  a  boys'  club  and  make  a  fine 
big  hit  uptown,"  he  said  to  me  as  he  puffed  his  old  black 
briar  pipe  one  evening,  "is  carefully  to  gather  in  all  the 
very  good  little  boys;  and  when  they  have  come  with  their 
knitting,  send  for  your  supporters  uptown  and  show 
what  a  miracle  you  have  performed.  They'll  build  you 
a  big  club  house  then  and  have  you  up  to  dinner  or  to 
talk  in  churches;  and  with  a  solemn  look  they'll  say, 
'That  man  is  doing  a  great  work.'  But  if  Christ  Almighty 
were  here  tonight,  it's  dollars  to  doughnuts  he'd  say  to 
me,  'You're  all  right,  pal — go  after  the  tough  ones — the 
fellers  that  are  headed  for  jail'." 

These  chaps  were  not  only  headed  for  jail  but  many  got 
there  frequently.  For  drunkenness,  for  petty  theft  and 
even  burglary  and  assault,  they  were  always  getting 
"pinched."  Sometimes  he  would  get  them  off.  More 
often  they  would  be  sent  away;  and  from  such  lads,  on 
their  return,  I  heard  hair-raising  little  yarns  of  prison 
life  told  in  the  club — while  the  younger  boys  listened 
respectfully.  Yes,  they  were  tough,  from  a  wild  little 
world.  There  was  a  feud  raging  in  those  days.  The 
Italians,  known  as  "Wops,"  were  moving  into  the  neigh 
borhood,  and  the  indignant  Irish  were  up  in  arms  to  keep 
them  out.  Street  battles  between  gangs  took  place,  and 


BLIND  55 

often  a  boy  would  appear  at  the  club  with  a  black  eye  or 
a  bloody  arm. 

I  remember  one  called  Harpy.  He  was  a  short  swarthy 
Wop  with  dull  heavy  features.  A  bit  of  a  burglar  in  his 
day,  he  had  "done  time"  and  had  reformed.  By  day  he 
drove  a  wagon,  by  night  he  played  the  piano  here,  pound 
ing  out  the  ragtime  with  a  gleam  in  his  dull  eyes.  For 
the  glory  of  Italy,  more  than  once  he  came  in  with  his 
shirt  soaked  in  blood,  but  this  did  not  seem  to  trouble 
him.  What  made  him  brood  by  the  hour — on  his  driver's 
seat  by  day  and  on  his  dirty  bed  at  night  where  he  lay 
breathing  hard  in  the  dark — was  the  way  his  girl  was 
treating  him. 

The  plain  fact  of  the  matter  was  that  she  would  not 
be  his  girl  at  all.  Nor  did  I  blame  her.  I  caught  sight 
of  her  first  at  a  public  school  entertainment  one  night. 
The  school,  in  its  baffling  task  of  trying  to  stop  racial 
enmities  and  fuse  into  one  new  nation  the  children  of 
many  races  here,  was  giving  a  Dance  of  All  Nations 
that  night.  And  Harpy's  girl  danced  for  Italy.  A  lithe 
supple  creature  of  seventeen,  her  dusky  beauty  and  black 
hair  set  off  by  the  vivid  colors  of  the  peasant  costume, 
she  seemed  to  move  on  velvet  springs — bending,  sway 
ing,  tossing  her  head.  And  hearing  the  heavy  breathing 
of  Harpy  close  behind  me,  I  thought, 

"You  poor  devil,  what  chance  have  you  got?" 

I  found  that  she  was  going  about  with  a  handsome 
young  bartender,  "Little  Dan,"  a  friend  of  mine.  And 
through  him  I  met  the  girl  one  night.  I  had  been  quite 
a  dancer  at  college  "proms,"  but  never  at  college  or 
uptown  had  I  held  a  creature  like  this  in  my  arms — 
velvety,  yielding,  drifting  along  like  a  dream  of  a  most 
maddening  kind.  I  had  many  dances  with  her  that  night; 
and  on  other  nights  in  crowded  halls  in  various  parts  of 
the  city,  with  Little  Dan  and  an  extra  girl  or  even  with 
this  one  alone,  I  drifted  through  that  warm  glad  world 


66  BLIND 

made  up  of  the  sons  and  daughters  of  the  tenements  of 
New  York.  And  Little  Dan  allowed  it.  Why  ?  In  those 
unregenerate  days,  with  "white  slavers"  thick  as  bees, 
in  the  deafening  rocking  halls  where  the  liquor  flowed  so 
free  and  a  gent  danced  with  his  derby  hat  tilted  rakishly 
to  one  side — to  keep  out  of  trouble  it  had  grown  to  be 
a  rigid  custom  that  a  youth,  if  honest-intentioned,  kept 
his  girl  strictly  to  himself.  But  Little  Dan  was  a  friend 
of  mine  and  he  felt  that  I  was  "on  the  level."  Besides, 
he  was  in  a  puzzled  mood. 

"It's  like  dis,  Larry,"  he  said  to  me.  "I  like  her— she's 
some  goil,  all  right — anj  I  don't  want  to  start  anyt'ing. 
See  ?  I  never  yet  started  a  goil  to  de  bad  an'  I  don't  intend 
to  now.  Understand?  An'  if  I  ring  de  wedding  chimes, 
me  dad  an'  me  mudder  will  raise  hell.  She's  a  Wop. 
Understand?  Dat's  de  hell  of  it!" 

So  he  was  puzzled.  Which  way  to  jump?  He  was  in 
love  up  to  his  ears — but  she  was  a  Wop  and  he  was 
Irish.  Her  father  peddled  from  a  cart,  his  father  owned 
a  big  saloon.  Could  he  ever  bridge  the  gap?  He  needed 
time  to  think  it  out.  So  he  welcomed  me  into  the  affair; 
and  I  found  myself  a  go-between.  For  the  lady  confided. 
Though  as  a  rule  she  would  dance  the  whole  evening 
without  a  word,  on  the  way  home  with  her  strong  supple 
fingers  clutching  my  arm  she  would  abruptly  flash  out, 
in  her  broken  English,  some  question  about  Little  Dan. 
Though  well  aware  of  the  obstacles  to  making  such  an 
ambitious  match,  she  counted  on  her  glossy  hair,  her 
warm  red  lips  and  her  gorgeous  young  body,  to  bring 
him  to  terms.  If  only  she  could  do  it  in  time !  She  would 
soon  be  old !  She  was  seventeen  I 

So  through  those  first  crowded  months  she  moved,  a 
gay,  disturbing  figure.  And  it  never  crossed  my  mind — 
the  tragedy  lurking  just  ahead. 

She  told  me  abruptly  one  evening  how  Harpy  the  Wop 
was  bothering  her.  Twice  on  the  street  he  had  come  up 


BLIND  57 

behind  and  hugged  her  in  his  dirty  arms.  She  had 
grown  to  hate  him  passionately.  She  would  have  him 
"pinched"  if  he  kept  on.  I  told  her  I'd  see  what  I  could 
do.  He  promised  me  to  leave  her  alone,  and  apparently 
he  did  so.  She  never  spoke  of  him  again.  But  one  night 
through  my  window  I  heard  a  commotion  down  the 
street — shouts,  shrill  whistles,  people  running.  One  of 
the  usual  fights,  I  thought.  But  as  the  uproar  swiftly 
grew,  I  looked  again,  and  saw  at  the  head  of  the  noisy 
mob,  between  two  cops,  with  torn  disheveled  dress  and 
hair — that  girl — my  dancing  partner!  I  got  to  the 
station-house  just  in  time  to  hear  the  charge.  Motionless 
and  statuesque,  charged  with  murder  she  replied  in  a 
queer  quiet  voice  which  was  broken  at  times  by  a  violent 
sob.  Harpy  had  come  into  her  home  and  found  her  alone. 
She  had  fought  him  off  at  first  with  her  hands,  with  the 
unwashed  supper  plates  and  knives.  Then,  driven  into  a 
corner,  she  had  snatched  her  father's  pistol. 

"I  got  him.    I  am  glad,"  she  said. 

I  went  to  see  her  in  the  Tombs,  and  it  gave  me  a  cold 
feeling  to  see  her  there  in  Murderers'  Row.  Till  then  I 
had  not  realized  how  close  we  had  been — just  dancing. 
I  did  not  write  her  story  then,  but  others  did,  and  at  her 
trial  I  was  brought  into  the  affair.  On  the  stand,  in 
cross-examination  the  young  assistant  district  attorney, 
turning  to  me  with  a  cynical  smile,  said  pleasantly, 

"You  have  testified  that  you  know  the  defendant.  Now 
will  you  tell  this  court  and  jury  whether  you  ever  took 
her  out  to  dance  halls,  Mr.  Hart?" 

"I  did." 

"How  often?" 

"I  don't  remember." 

"So  many  as  that.  Did  you  ever  take  her  alone,  Mr. 
Hart?" 

"Yes." 

"To  what  halls  did  you  take  her?"    I  mentioned  three. 


58  BLIND 

"Did  you  ever  hear  those  halls  described  as  the  toughest 
joints  in  town,  Mr.  Hart  ?" 

"No." 

"Did  you  dance  late  with  her  there  ?" 

"Sometimes  I  did." 

"And  after  that?" 

"I  took  her  home." 

"Always,  Mr.  Hart?" 

"I  did." 

A  chuckle  from  the  jury.  "Wise  kid,"  muttered  one. 
The  attorney  smiled: 

"Now,  Mr.  Hart,  will  you  tell  the  jury  whether  this 
girl  ever  to«ld  you  the  reason  why — although  she 
was  willing  and  eager  to  go  with  you,  the  son  of  a  well 
known  millionaire,  to  the  toughest  joints  in  the  city  and 
dance  there  with  you  half  the  night — she  had  nothing 
but  rebuffs  for  the  young  Italian  lad  who  came  to  her  in 
his  working  clothes  to  tell  her  of  his  love  for  her?" 

"Yes,"  I  replied,  "she  told  me  the  reason.  She  said 
that  he  often  came  to  her  drunk  and  that  twice  on  the 
street  he  came  up  from  behind  and — 'hugged'  her  was 
the  word  she  used." 

"Did  you  never  hug  her,  Mr.  Hart  ?" 

"I  did  not." 

Loud  mirth  from  tne  jury.  I  heard  the  whisper — 
"lucky  boy."  Large  headlines  in  the  evening  papers. 
Disgust  and  consternation  up  at  Dad's  Park  Avenue 
home.  He  sent  for  me  that  evening. 

"Well,  Larry?" 

"Well,  Dad?" 

"Pretty  raw  stuff." 

"Rotten,  Dad.  And  I'm  sorry  about  it  on  your  account, 
disgusted  with  the  whole  affair." 

"Don't  you  think,"  he  asked  me  hopefully,  "it's  time 
you  went  to  work  in  the  mills?" 


BLIND  59 

"Sorry  Dad.  I  want  to  write — and  I'm  getting  a  lot 
of  real  stuff  down  there." 

"So  it  seems,"  he  answered. 

The  girl  was  acquitted  the  next  day  and  was  brought 
home  in  an  open  carriage  decked  with  flowers.  But  in 
that  triumphant  reception  I  was  able  to  keep  out  of  sight, 
like  Little  Dan.  For  the  lady  had  no  need  of  us  now. 
She  had  been  so  wonderfully  advertised.  An  avalanche 
of  letters  came  pouring  in  upon  her,  demands  for  her 
picture  and  offers  of  marriage.  Up  sailed  the  market 
value  of  her  beauty  in  the  town.  And  many  high  class 
brothels  through  their  agents  did  their  best.  They  failed 
to  get  her  only  because — she  married  Little  Dan?  Oh 
no.  She  was  far  above  him  now.  She  signed  up  with  a 
Broadway  musical  show. 

And  then,  feeling  older  and  wiser,  I  wrote  the  story 
of  "Harpy's  Girl."  But  I  did  not  publish  it  at  the  time. 


4. 

Numberless  other  stories  came  to  me  in  the  spring  of 
that  year.  At  the  precinct  station  I  would  sit  in  the  cap 
tain's  room,  watching  through  the  open  door  the  events 
of  a  Saturday  night.  Long  stretches  of  silence,  the  fat 
desk  sergeant  drowsing  over  the  heavy  books  in  which 
were  recorded  so  many  grim  tales  that  there  seemed  to 
be  no  room  for  more.  But  from  outside  came  sudden 
shouts  and  laughing  curses,  peals  of  mirth,  the  shuffle  of 
feet;  and  from  that  ceaseless  hurly-burly,  figures  stalked 
abruptly  in,  or  were  dragged  in  protesting.  Mere  frag 
ments  in  my  memory  now: 

A  scared  but  defiant  boy  of  ten.  A  pickpocket  in  the 
first  stage  of  the  game,  he  had  followed  a  stout  old  woman 
up  a  steep  dark  flight  of  stairs  and  had  tried  to  pick  the 
purse  out  of  her  stocking.  But  she  had  grabbed  him. 
"Aw  she  lied — she  did  so!"  he  declared.  "I  never!  .  .  . 
Naw!"  were  his  replies.  At  the  door  to  the  cell  room 


60  BLIND 

he  turned  back,  gave  a  tense  little  laugh,  then  disap 
peared. 

A  thin  young  German  came  in  on  a  stretcher.  His 
hands,  bound  together  with  a  cord,  lay  on  his  stomach, 
waxy  white.  Face  the  same  color.  Around  his  neck  was 
still  the  bit  of  clothes-line  with  which  he  had  hanged 
himself.  "D-D^D,"  was  inscribed  in  the  blotter.  "Dutch, 
Drunk  and  Despondent."  Off  to  the  Morgue. 

A  young  Swedish  girl  about  eighteen,  rather  stout, 
very  rosy,  came  in  one  night.  She  had  merry  little 
twinkling  eyes  and  lips  that  did  not  need  the  paint.  She 
smiled  at  the  young  cop  at  her  side  and  up  at  the  sergeant, 
too.  She  seemed  to  me  to  be  asking  them,  "But  what 
would  you  do  without  me?"  They  seemed  to  be  answer 
ing,  "God  knows." 

A  terrified  little  Russian  Jew.  Street  peddling  without 
a  license.  With  intense  dismay  on  his  face,  he  craned 
his  neck  up  at  the  desk  and  screwed  all  his  features  tight 
in  the  effort  to  understand.  He  poured  forth  a  torrent  of 
Yiddish  words,  and  sobbing  he  was  dragged  to  the  cell 
room.  "Oy-oy-oy!"  The  door  banged  to. 

A  bony  little  woman,  a  Wop,  rushed  into  the  station 
excitedly — with  gestures,  shrugs,  a  volcano  of  talk  and 
wild  appeals.  Her  bambino  had  swallowed  a  fish  bone! 
Was  choking  to  death !  Oh  Mother  of  God ! 

A  silent  smiling  youngster  came  stalking  in  with  a 
lofty  air.  Blood  from  a  bullet  hole  in  his  arm.  Who  did 
it?  "Say — do  I  look  like  a  squealer?"  He  wanted  no 
help  from  the  law  of  the  land,  for  there  was  a  deeper 
law  down  here  which  said  to  him,  "This  is  your  affair." 
He  turned  with  a  sharp  jerk,  straining  his  ears.  From 
the  distance  several  shots  were  heard.  I  ran  out, 
and  looking  up  to  the  dark  sky-line  of  the  Lung 
Block  against  the  glow  of  the  city  beyond,  I  thought  I 
saw  small  shadowy  forms  dart  over  the  roofs.  More 
pistol  shots.  The  law  of  the  land  was  doing  its  best. 


BLIND  61 

But  little  by  little  the  uproar  subsided.  The  cops  came 
back  to  the  station  house.  And  the  youngster  with  the 
bloody  arm  smiled  at  them  still  in  his  lofty  way,  as 
though  he  were  saying,  "Leave  him  to  me." 

Long  before  this,  Pop  Jehosaphat  had  taken  me  about 
with  him  on  wider  explorations  into  the  criminal  life 
of  the  town.  And  through  him  I  met  Charley  Gear. 

Charley  had  come  into  hard  times.  A  fine  crook  once, 
a  pickpocket  living  off  the  fat  of  the  land,  known  and 
respected  by  thousands — he  had  reformed  and  married 
a  widow  and  settled  down  as  the  janitor  of  an  old  office 
building.  Dismally  his  tedious  days  were  spent  in  virtu 
ous  overalls;  but  often  in  the  evenings,  in  a  frock  suit 
with  a  lavender  scarf,  he  would  take  me  about  to  certain 
cafes  where  you  had  to  knock  in  peculiar  ways  in  order 
to  gain  admittance.  Charley  was  a  handsome  man,  with 
a  drooping  brown  moustache.  He  had  an  excellent  tenor 
voice,  and  urged  to  the  piano  he  would  sing  such  yearn 
ing  songs  as,  "Please,  Mama,  Buy  Me  a  Baby,"  and 
would  be  encored  many  times  by  the  clever  crooks  who 
sat  at  the  tables  with  expensive  young  dames  at  their 
sides.  They  treated  him  as  they  would  a  friend  who  has 
tamely  let  some  woman  nag  him  into  giving  up  cigarettes. 
But  they  liked  him  still.  Good  old  Charley.  They  knew 
he  would  not  be  such  a  sneak  as  to  smuggle  a  "squealer" 
Into  their  midst.  And  they  were  right.  He  made  me 
agree  to  write  nothing  that  could  get  any  friend  of  his 
into  trouble.  As  a  rule,  he  read  my  copy. 

So  it  happened,  late  in  the  spring,  that  through  a  tip 
from  Charley  I  was  able  to  pull  off  a  "scoop"  that  made 
my  paper  proud  of  me.  And  because  of  this  I  was  called 
downtown.  At  police  headquarters  a  certain  official, 
whose  name  was  known  all  over  the  land,  eyed  me  for 
a  moment  and  said, 

"Mr.  Hart,  a  house  on  Fifth  Avenue" — and  he  men 
tioned  the  address — "was  entered  at  four  o'clock  this 


€2  BLIND 

morning.  Among  other  things  they  got  a  pearl  necklace 
valued  at  forty  thousand." 

"Yes,  sir/'' 

"Your  paper  ran  the  story." 

"Yes,  sir." 

"You  wrote  it." 

"Yes,  sir." 

"And  your  paper  went  to  press  at  one  o'clock." 

"Yes,  sir." 

"What  have  you  to  say  for  yourself  ?" 

For  a  moment  or  two  I  thought  very  hard. 

"My  paper  pays  me  to  get  the  news." 

"It  does — but  when  you  pick  up  news  of  a  crime  abotit 
to  be  committed/' 

An  ominous  pause. 

"What  should  I  have  done,  sir?" 

"Why  not  have  informed  the  police  ?" 

I  looked  back  at  him,  undecided,  and  then  took  a 
chance : 

"But  look  here,  Chief,  this  thing  was  so*  big.  How 
could  I  have  any  idea  that  the  whole  New  York  police 
force  would  be  asleep  to  a  thing  so  big  that  even  a  cub 
reporter  knew  it?"  I  stopped,  with  a  genial  little  smile. 
There  was  no  response.  I  went  farther.  God  help  me,  it 
was  my  only  hope.  "If  you  don't  agree  with  me,  Chief, 
why  not  test  it  out  in  court  ?  Hold  me  as  accessory  to  the 
crime.  Let  my  paper  run  the  story  of  my  trial  from  day 
to  day;  and  see  if  the  people  of  New  York  don't  agree 
with  me — that  I,  a  mere  cub  reporter,  ought  not  even  to 
have  dared  to  suspect  that  I  could  tell  the  police  force 
anything  they  didn't  know." 

Thank  Heaven,  I  had  him  smiling  now.  The  smile 
broke  into  a  gruff  little  sound  between  a  grunt  and  a 
chuckle. 

"I  knew  your  father.    You're  like  him,"  he  said. 

'Thank  you,  sir." 


BLIND,  63 

And  I  was  free.  Royally  was  I  feasted  by  gleeful 
journalists  that  night,  and  back  in  the  Lung  Block  I  was 
loved  as  "the  kid  who  put  one  over  on  B ." 

s.  ; 

And  I  was  cocky  for  a  time.  A  precocious  mcky 
youngster,  I  had  made  a  remarkable  start;  and  there 
were  many  people  only  too  ready  to  flatter  the  son  of 
Carrington  Hart.  With  such  an  easy  quick  success,  how 
could  I  get  any  real  understanding  of  how  it  feels  to  be 
down  and  out?  I  was  only  an  eager  hungry  boy  picking 
up  impressions.  But  thinking  myself  extremely  profound, 
I  would  argue  by  the  hour  with  Steve  about  graft, 
politics,  and  prostitution.  And  Steve  with  that  dry  smile 
of  his  would  take  me  down  a  peg  or  two.  His  grim  job 
would  jerk  me  back  from  the  glamor  to  the  naked  truth 
— that  in  spite  of  all  the  drama  here,  these  people  were 
getting  a  raw  deal. 

We  had  long  talks  in  a  small  cafe.  It  was  next  door 
to  a  book  shop,  where  to  my  astonishment  I  found  mixed 
in  with  the  popular  stuff  such  authors  as  Darwin,  Spencer, 
Karl  Marx,  Tolstoi,  Kropotkin,  and  Zola.  Half  at  least 
I  had  never  read,  but  I  knew  the  names.  Deep  fellows, 
regular  highbrows  in  fact.  Who  the  devil  read  them 
here?  The  chap  who  kept  the  little  shop  turned  out  to 
be  an  anarchist.  And  that  struck  me  as  funny,  for  he 
was  such  a  mild  little  man.  At  first  he  did  not  welcome 
us — but  later,  learning  of  Steve's  work,  he  let  us  into  his 
circle  of  readers  in  the  small  cafe  next  door.  For  me  they 
had  nothing  but  contempt,  but  Steve's  work  was  dif 
ferent.  Like  a  pack  of  publishers  hunting  a  "best  seller" 
down,  so  these  fellows  fairly  itched  to  get  Steve's  cold 
bare  record  of  deaths  and  publish  it  in  their  radical 
press.  More  black  evidence  against  the  capitalistic  sys 
tem!  Anarchists  and  socialists,  they  argued  on  into  the 
night;  and  listening  to  the  news  they  gave  of  similar 


64  BLIND 

groups  large  and  small,  in  cities,  towns  and  mining  camps, 
and  in  the  stoke-holes  out  at  sea,  I  grew  vaguely  con 
scious  of  a  vast  world-wide  revolt  brewing  among  the 
masses.  The  Proletariat.  There  was  fascination  in  that 
word.  And  the  feeling  of  impending  drama,  great  as 
all  humanity,  came  to  me  at  times  as  they  talked. 

But  only  for  a  moment.  They  seemed  such  insignificant 
chaps,  so  obstinate,  dogmatic;  so  half-baked  were  their 
theories.  Steve  calmly  riddled  them  full  of  holes  by  the 
shrewd  keen  questions  that  he  asked.  He  went  back  to 
his  job  and  I  to  mine.  And  in  the  local  political  club 
where  I  was  wise  to  politics,  and  in  the  precinct  station 
where  I  had  learned  the  power  of  cops — I  felt  those 
dreams  of  revolution  through  the  ballot  or  the  bomb  fade 
away  into  thin  air.  Crazy  highbrows  of  the  slums.  I 
wrote  them  up  occasionally. 

So  through  that  turgid  crowded  year,  Steve  and  I 
came  face  to  face  with  poverty,  vice  and  crime  and  death, 
and  the  first  grumbles  of  revolt.  But  though  engrossed 
in  these  ominous  scenes,  I  can  see  now  as  I  look  back 
that  we  were  still  more  absorbed  in  ourselves,  in  our 
youth  and  our  deepening  friendship.  Both  of  us  knew 
that  we  ourselves  were  going  to  escape  all  this,  to  rise 
lip  out  of  it,  forge  ahead.  We  saw  long  splendid  vistas 
opening.  Steve,  intense  and  "scientific"  (to  a  degree  that 
he  smiles  at  now)  down  there  in  the  jungle  fighting 
disease  could  look  out  of  it  to  a  surgeon's  career — while 
I,  beneath  my  bitter  moods  and  my  warm  friendship  for 
the  poor,  knew  that  I  was  coming  on  rapidly  as  a  writer 
now.  And  as  the  son  of  Carrington  Hart  I  knew  what 
was  waiting  for  me  uptown. 


CHAPTER  IV 

• 

1. 

FOR  I  was  already  in  demand.  In  the  eyes  of  many 
girls  uptown,  I  was  "Bohemian,"  "clever,"  "queer." 
Moreover  I  was  an  exuberant  youngster,  apt  to  be  the 
life  of  a  party.  When  I  left  the  slums  I  left  them.  I 
refused  to  be  inveigled  by  solemn  young  maids  into 
accounts  of  how  and  why  and  wherefore  I  was  cham 
pioning  the  poor.  I  told  dialect  stories  rather  well,  I 
could  laugh  till  the  tears  rolled  down  my  cheeks,  I  could 
sing,  I  could  dance,  and  I  was  precocious,  mixing  with 
older  girls  and  men.  So  by  mail  and  telephone  the  invita 
tions  began  to  pour  in.  And  though  I  often  told  myself 
that  all  this  was  very  tame  compared  to  the  life  I  was 
leading  downtown,  I  liked  it  exceedingly  nevertheless. 
I  liked  to  go  to  a  dance  uptown,  pick  out  a  pretty  well- 
dressed  girl  and  "rush"  her  until  the  excited  young  thing 
and  I  were  all  but  engaged  to  each  other.  Then  in  the 
hours  before  the  dawn  back  to  the  tenements,  grim  and 
dark,  except  for  a  few  lighted  windows  that  set  me  to 
imagining  the  early  risers,  the  late  watchers.  Yes,  by 
God,  this  world  was  real — the  other,  merest  fluff  and 
sparkle.  Up  into  my  studio  home,  off  with  my  dress 
suit,  into  pajamas.  Then  a  last  pipe  and  drowsy 
thoughts;  and  so  into  the  deep,  deep  sleep  of  a  shamelessly 
happy  and  lucky  young  man. 

But  my  job  on  the  paper  made  parties  like  that  rather 
few  and  far  between.  More  often  I  went  to  my  father's 
home.  Lower  Park  Avenue,  in  those  days,  was  a  fash 
ionable  quarter  still.  Dad's  house — or  rather,  Aunt 
Fanny's,  for  it  had  been  her  family  home — was  a  large 

65 


66  BLIND 

compact  affair  as  solid  as  brown  stone  could  make  it. 
It  stood  on  a  corner,  with  a  capacious  yard  behind.  And 
even  the  stables  in  the  rear  had  an  air  of  assurance,  as 
though  they  were  saying,  "There  will  always  be  car 
riages,  horses  and  a  large  fat  coachman  here/'  The  house 
itself  with  its  great  brown  stones  appeared  to  be  demand 
ing,  "Who  speaks  of  apartment  buildings?'*  The  spacious 
halls  and  rooms  within,  and  the  broad  winding  stairway, 
seemed  to  murmur  discreetly,  "There  will  always  be  the 
rich."  While  back  in  the  dining  room  certain  very  digni 
fied  but  genial  old  decanters  said  casually,  "There  will 
always  be  wine." 

I  would  drop  in  about  five  o'clock;  and  when,  with  a 
fine  reserved  smile  of  greeting,  the  butler  took  my  hat 
and  coat,  I  liked  to  go  into  a  large  dim  room  with  the 
glow  from  a  fire  at  one  end,  sink  into  an  easy  chair,  take 
a  paper  and  light  a  cigarette,  feel  everything  inside  of 
me  relax  and  drift.  I  would  fall  asleep,  to  be  wakened 
by  a  servant  lighting  the  lamps  or  putting  another  log  on 
the  fire.  It  was  so  very  restful  here. 

Then  a  merry  burst  of  laughter  would  come  down  from 
the  nursery,  and  I  would  go  up  to  play  with  the  children, 
who  welcomed  me  in  a  joyous  way  that  was  good  for 
any  young  man's  soul.  Louise  was  now  a  plump  and 
•winsome  little  girl  of  .five;  and  her  brother  Carrington, 
who  was  not  quite  four  years  old,  made  up  for  any  lack 
of  stature  by  the  stiff  determination  in  his  thick  black 
hair,  brushed  straight  back,  and  by  the  roguish  gleam 
in  his  eyes  as  he  watched  his  "brudder  Larry"  to  see 
which  way  the  pillow  would  fly,  and  by  the  terrific  twist 
and  heave  of  his  stout  limbs  and  tummy  as  he  hurled  the 
missile  back.  With  what  roars  of  delight  he  entered  into 
those  "rush-house"  games  of  ours — while  our  sister 
squealed  and  clapped  her  hands,  and  the  head  nurse  and 
the  nursemaid  tried  to  look  amused  and  pleased  as  we 
smashed  things  all  about.  "Rush-house!  Rush-house! 


BLIND  6T 

Rush-house!"  shrieked  that  embryo  millionaire.  Why 
should  he  care  what  he  smashed?  Toys?  There  were 
toys  all  over  the  room,  and  three  orderly  closets  stacked 
with  them.  On  a  doll's  hat,  just  arrived,  I  caught  a 
glimpse  of  the  purchase  tag.  Eight  dollars!  And  the 
whole  room  was  like  that.  Still,  by  a  miracle  escaping  any 
hint  of  vulgar  display,  the  nursery  had  somehow  achieved 
a  simple  cozy  childlike  air — the  white  painted  little  beds 
and  chairs  all  just  as  innocent  as  lambs. 

And  when  Aunt  Fanny  appeared  in  the  doorway — 
whether  in  furs,  just  in  from  the  street,  or  in  a  wrapper 
of  soft  silk,  or  already  dressed  for  dinner — there  was  in 
rny  father's  attractive  young  wife  a  gracious  good-nature 
and  content  that  left  no  doubt  as  to  who  had  created  this 
nursery,  who  had  given  these  children  life.  Nor  could 
there  be  any  question  as  to  the  Tightness  and  fitness,  in 
this  easy  wealthy  world,  of  the  unobtrusively  costly  lives 
that  she  was  planning  for  them  both. 

Aunt  Fanny  and  I  were  on  intimate  terms.  Gone  was 
my  early  dislike  of  her.  I  was  twenty-two — she  was 
thirty-one.  But  while  at  times  delightfully  young,  she 
could  change  in  a  flash  and  mother  me.  And  at  such 
moments,  in  some  subtle  way,  she  could  make  me  feel 
very  much  a  boy — herself  immeasurably  more  wise  in 
what  she  called  "the  things  that  count."  Her  life  was 
so  nicely  rounded  out.  She  persuaded  me  to  go  with  her 
to  church  late  one  afternoon  in  Lent;  and  beneath  the 
benevolent  radiance  of  the  serene  old  saints  in  the 
windows,  listening  to  the  organ  and  the  rich  sweet  choir 
voices  and  to  Aunt  Fanny's  voice  at  my  side  softly 
chanting  the  responses,  I  got  an  impression  of  deep 
wells  of  gracious  assurance  within  her  soul  as  to  her 
social  position  both  in  heaven  and  on  earth.  Reverence? 
Yes,  she  was  reverent  here,  humbly  worshipping  at  the 
feet  of  a  Great  and  Perfect  Gentleman.  "Do  unto 
others  ?-u  ,Yes,  she  was  tactful  in  the  daily  snarls  of  life 


€8  BLIND 

She  could  help  her  friends  in  situations  she  described  as 
"difficult,"  she  could  keep  her  own  troubles  to  herself,  she 
could  smile  a  beastly  headache  away,  she  could  bravely 
and  quietly  endure  the  bearing  of  children.  She  was  gen 
erous  in  her  charities,  especially  those  of  a  personal  kind. 
'The  poor  ye  have  with  you  always." 

A  mighty  pleasant  chloroform — her  effect  on  me  was 
rather  like  that.  She  agreed  that  it  was  a  good  thing  for 
a  writer  to  have  a  close  look  at  the  poor.  "Heaven  knows 
they  need  all  the  writing  and  all  the  help  we  can  give 
them,  poor  things."  But  from  such  talk  she  would  soon 
turn  to  a  more  cheerful  topic,  my  own  life  and  my  career. 
She  was  the  first  to  whom  I  confessed  my  secret  ambition 
to  write  plays.  We  discussed  it  in  her  box  at  the  opera 
one  evening  when  she  had  no  guests. 

"Poor  lonely  boy,"  she  would  smile  at  me,  "when  I've 
studied  you  and  studied  you  till  I  know  exactly  what  you 
need — then,  Larry,  I  shall  find  you  a  wife." 

At  dinner  parties  sometimes  she  would  ask  me  to  fill 
in.  On  such  evenings,  with  what  easy  charm  she  would 
preside  at  her  table,  all  the  while  letting  nothing  escape 
her.  For  all  my  young  sagacity,  I  missed  so  many  innu 
endoes,  sudden  revelations  of  little  volcanoes  raging 
there.  But  after  the  guests  had  departed,  my  shrewd 
young  mother  would  put  me  wise. 

"Oh,  Larry,  Larry,  what  would  you  do  without  your 
mother?"  she  would  smile.  "My  advice  to  you,  poor 
dear,  is  never  to  marry  without  my  consent." 

I  liked  my  young  stepmother  friend. 

But  how  that  young  woman  could  get  away  with  what 
is  vulgarly  known  as  cash !  For  the  benefit  of  those  mor 
tals  who  will  presently  live  in  a  world  from  which  both 
the  extremely  rich  and  the  damnably  poor  have  disap 
peared,  I  hereby  put  it  on  record  as  a  matter  of  historic 
fact — how  Aunt  Fanny  spent  her  day  and  what  it  cost 
the  world  at  large 


BLIND  69 

In  a  house  run  smoothly  to  the  tune  of  about  a  hun 
dred  thousand  a  year,  she  was  awakened  at  nine  o'clock 
in  a  carved  antique  affair  which  on  account  of  my  ignor 
ance  I  shall  simply  call  a  bed.  For  the  same  reason  I 
shall  not  attempt  to  describe  that  luxurious  room,  nor  the 
clothes,  nor  any  of  the  rites  performed  by  a  skilful  lady's 
maid  about  the  person  of  my  aunt.  Her  children  came  in 
to  see  her  there.  Later,  several  times  a  week,  she  went 
out  in  her  carriage  or  coupe,  with  two  men  on  the  box 
and  a  crest  on  the  door;  and  in  every  conceivable  kind  of 
shop,  greeted  with  the  deference  of  America,  England, 
Germany,  France,  Russia,  Italy  and  Japan,  Aunt  Fanny 
selected  clothes,  hats,  gloves,  shoes,  slippers,  jewels  and 
furniture,  rugs,  toys,  flowers  and  pictures  from  all  over 
the  face  of  the  earth,  and  had  them  charged  to  her 
account.  She  loved  to  send  little  gifts  to  her  friends, 
flowers  to  people  sick  or  in  trouble.  Her  wedding  gifts 
alone,  I  learned,  came  to  some  fifty  thousand  a  year. 

Having  spent  a  thousand  dollars  or  two,  she  would 
lunch  and  rest  for  a  little  while.  Then  forth  she  would  go 
to  a  dressmaker's  or  perhaps  for  a  drive  in  the  Park. 
Then  tea  at  a  friend's,  or  back  at  home  she  would  sit  with 
her  children  at  their  supper.  And  the  later  events  of  the 
evening — a  dinner,  the  opera  or  a  dance — were  mere 
details  compared  to  the  plans  which  in  that  "children's 
hour"  she  made  for  those  expensive  kids  and  the  larger 
and  more  costly  household  that  she  saw  ahead. 

Even  now,  I  learned  toward  the  end  of  the  winter,  she 
was  expecting  another  child.  And  because  she  was  hav 
ing  a  "difficult"  time,  I  saw  less  of  her  than  I  had  before. 


2. 

But  more  than  Aunt  Fanny,  it  was  my  father  who 
attracted  me  to  the  house.  For  rather  to  my  own  surprise 
— and  his,  too,  I  fancied — there  quickly  developed 
between  us  a  very  deep  and  real  affection.  We  liked  to  be 


70  BLIND 

in  the  same  room — smoking,  reading  a  book  or  a  paper, 
throwing  out  occasional  questions.  Grunted  answers. 
Silence  again.  But  at  times  amazingly  intimate  talks. 
For  now  I  could  talk  with  him  man  to  man,  and  it  began 
to  dawn  upon  me  that  my  father  was  not  old.  I  was 
struck  repeatedly  by  the  fact  that  he  was  "a  comer"  still, 
considered  one  of  the  rising  figures  in  the  world  down 
town. 

At  forty-eight  he  was  short,  thick-set,  with  grayish 
hair,  smooth  face,  wide  jaw  and  a  voice  as  deep  as  mine. 
In  his  voice  and  in  his  shrewd  blue  eyes  was  a  very  human 
quality.  He  had  taken  a  great  liking  for  Steve  and 
encouraged  me  to  bring  him  to  dine.  Steve  was  at  first 
reluctant;  but  discovering  that  in  her  condition  Aunt 
Fanny  kept  to  her  room  when  he  came,  he  let  me  bring 
him  more  and  more.  And  my  father  took  a  keen  interest 
in  drawing  us  out.  Not  only  did  he  like  young  men,  but 
if  he  found  them  promising  he  was  glad  to  help  them, 
too.  There  were  numberless  such  whom  he  had  helped, 
and  he  liked  to  talk  about  them — both  to  take  pride  in 
what  he  had  done  and  to  prove  the  truth  of  his  belief 
that  young  men  of  this  kind  were  the  strength  of  the 
nation.  For  the  common  herd  of  weaklings  he  had  little 
but  contempt.  He  put  small  faith  in  the  new  and  elab 
orate  plans  of  organized  charity  to  do  away  with  poverty 
by  teaching  the  poor  to  help  themselves.  They  could 
never  help  themselves.  "It's  all  damned  pooh-ba,"  he 
declared.  He  agreed  that  of  course  they  should  be  helped, 
but  he  liked  to  do  it  in  big-hearted  fashion — a  Thanks* 
giving  turkey,  a  ton  of  coal,  and  not  too  many  questions 
asked.  I  remember  one  night  his  quoting  that  little  bit  by 
O'Shaughnessey : 

"Organized  charity,  measured  and  iced 

In  the  name  of  a  cautious  statistical  Christ." 

His  attitude  toward  my  work  was  a  flattering  surprise 
to  me.  He  had  a  queer  respect  for  writers.  He  was  not 


BLIND  71 

bothered  in  the  least  by  the  vague  radical  views  I  aired, 
so  long  as  I  made  good  as  a  writer.  The  ideas  were  mere 
wild  oats.  I  think  he  hoped  that  I  might  end  as  manag 
ing  editor  of  a  paper  to  be  owned  and  controlled  by  him 
self,  and  so  play  an  active  part  in  the  big  struggles  he 
saw  ahead.  Upon  my  expanding  opinions  he  acted  like  a 
great  balance  wheel.  Apparently  open-minded,  he  would 
draw  me  out  with  ease;  and  then  to  my  surprise  I  would 
find  that  he,  too,  had  once  been  through  all  this.  Strikes, 
socialism,  anarchy — he  had  come  up  against  them  in 
his  mills.  So  far,  he  had  been  able  to  keep  his  plant  an 
open  shop;  but  watching  every  sign  of  unrest  among  the 
Irish  and  Italians,  Poles,  Germans  and  Hungarians  there, 
he  knew  he  was  only  postponing  trouble,  and  he  was 
always  looking  about  for  some  safe  way  of  meeting  it. 
He  had  installed  an  insurance  system  and  he  was  build 
ing  homes  for  the  men. 

"Only  a  starter,"  he  remarked.  "We'll  have  to  do 
much  more  than  that." 

Here  in  New  York  in  the  meantime,  that  great  immi 
grant,  Jacob  Riis,  had  started  the  slogan,  "Clean  up  the 
slums."  And  Dad  was  a  strong  backer  of  Riis.  He 
admired  the  hope  and  vitality,  the  boundless  energy  of 
the  man.  And  he  felt  the  same  way  toward  T.  R.,  who 
was  then  Police  Commissioner.  I  remember  one  night 
he  had  several  men  to  dinner  to  talk  of  Roosevelt.  These 
men  subscribed  to  a  Roosevelt  fund;  and  their  talk 
opened  my  eyes  to  the  fact  that  even  among  the  very 
rich  there  were  certain  liberal-minded  ones  who  knew  all 
about  the  slums  I  described  and  were  only  too  ready  to' 
push  reforms.  They  enlarged  upon  the  idea  I  had 
received,  first  from  the  radical  dreamers  downtown  and 
later  from  my  father,  about  the  stormy  times  ahead. 
Sagaciously  I  listened  and  wisely  I  sized  up  my  Dad: 

"He  doesn't  really  belong  with  these  chaps,  for  he's  a 
mixer  like  myself.  He  would  get  on  fine  with  the  crowd 


72  BLIND 

'down  in  my  political  club,  but  their  methods  are  too  raw 
for  him.  Now,  thank  God,  he  has  found  in  T.  R.  a 
reformer  and  a  gentleman  and  a  great  mixer  all  com 
bined." 

I  became  a  Roosevelt  "fan."  But  if  anyone  had  told  me 
that  Dad  had  brought  me  around  to  this,  I  would  have 
been  most  indignant. 

This  father  of  mine  was  full  of  surprises.  His  almost 
boyish  hunger  for  life  was  the  thing  in  him  that  appealed 
to  me  most.  He  took  a  bad  cold  that  winter,  which  ran 
into  pneumonia.  It  was  a  light  case  but  it  gave  him  a 
scare.  And  Steve,  who  was  taking  care  of  him,  said, 

"He's  as  superstitious  as  an  old  woman." 

When  Steve  effected  a  rapid  cure,  they  became  even 
better  friends  than  before.  Already  Dad  was  backing 
him.  But  though  seeing  the  value  of  his  work,  what  my 
father  liked  in  him  most  was  the  fact  that  Steve  regarded 
it  as  a  mere  stepping-stone  in  his  career.  Not  that  Steve 
was  a  climber  in  any  selfish  sense  of  the  word;  he  meant 
to  spend  a  large  part  of  his  life  in  service  for  the  common 
good.  But  his  work  was  to  lie  in  surgery.  For  the  knife 
he  had  a  passion  which  to  me  was  almost  weird.  And 
this  surgeon's  attitude  made  a  strong  appeal  to  my  father. 

"We  need  more  surgery  and  less  dopp  all  through  the 
nation,"  he  once  said. 


3. 

Of  my  sister  I  saw  very  little  that  winter.  It  was  not 
until  spring  that  Lucy  and  I  had  any  of  our  usual  long 
and  confidential  talks. 

Full  of  contradictions  still,  though  frequently  declar 
ing  herself  sick  and  tired  of  this  life,  she  had  neverthe 
less  gone  drifting  on  through  another  season  in  New 
York.  Drifted?  Dashed  is  the  better  word;  for  Lucy 
had,  if  anything,  gone  at  it  harder  than  before — packing 
so  much  into  her  day  that  she  was  forever  being  late  for 


BLIND  73 

one  fool  thing  or  another.   As  she  came  hurrying  down 
stairs  one  night,  I  heard  her  murmur  angrily, 

"Every  clock  I  look  at  is  faster  than  the  one  before!" 
A  bang  at  the  door,  and  she  was  off !  To  this  frantic 
rush-about  was  added  now  a  deeper  zest;  for  a  new 
suitor  had  appeared,  known  as  "Kelly"  Wallace.  A  rising 
young  lawyer,  he  was  a  chap  with  a  very  decent  sense  of 
humor;  but  his  genial  friendly  smile  hid  a  law  book 
underneath.  A  good  fellow  hard  as  nails,  bristling  with 
ideas  as  old  as  the  Rock  of  Ages.  Such  was  the  impres 
sion  I  had  from  occasional  glimpses  when  Lucy  brought 
him  to  the  house — obviously  to  be  looked  over.  Aunt 
Fanny  was  non-committal,  but  Dad  and  I  said  stoutly, 
"No!"  Uneasily  we  watched  the  affair,  for  the  fellow 
was  making  headway  fast.  He  was  pushing  her  hard 
and  it  worried  her.  She  knew  that  she  was  a  drifter  and 
that  by  a  rush  he  might  carry  her  off — and  this  made 
her  quick  changing  moods  more  contradictory  than 
before.  Now  angrily  absorbed  in  deciding — a  thing  she 
had  always  hated  to  do;  again  all  ease  and  unconcern, 
gaily  letting  things  drift  on. 

Almost  always  when  Steve  was  there  she  would  come 
down  and  sit  with  us  before  going  out  to  dine;  and  to 
Dad's  ironic  questions  as  to  her  giddy  goings-on  she 
would  reply  with  a  tolerant  smile.  She  knew  that  he  was 
proud  of  her.  Moreover,  she  was  well  aware  that  not  only 
Dad  but  Steve  and  I  were  all  more  than  glad  to  have  her 
there.  So  she  flirted  with  all  three  of  us.  She  looked  very 
fascinating,  those  nights.  Dark  and  slender — with  an 
air.  A  beautiful  neck  and  shoulders — generally  under 
some  chiffon  stuff.  Black  hair  very  soft — no  shine  to  it. 
Large  features.  Brows  and  lashes  black,  making  a  queer 
attractive  contrast  with  those  big  gray  eyes  of  hers,  that 
would  shimmer  with  amusement  or  contract  and  grow 
intent,  as  though  she  were  asking,  "What  time  is  it 
now?" 


74  BLIND 

With  a  frank  and  friendly  interest  she  would  throw 
questions  at  Steve  and  me.  She  wanted  to  come  down 
to  our  rooms,  but  smilingly  I  put  her  off.  I  knew  Steve 
did  not  want  her  there.  Or  did  he?  Often  I  would  glance 
from  him  to  my  young  sister.  What  little  thing  was  she 
tip  to  here?  Although  she  seldom  looked  at  Steve,  I 
could  see  she  was  perfectly  conscious  of  the  disturbing 
effect  upon  him  of  her  very  fetching  gown,  her  eyes  and 
the  quick  friendly  smile  which  at  times  without  warning 
she  would  flash  on  this  surgeon  chum  of  mine.  Often  he 
would  redden  a  bit  and  almost  stammer  his  reply.  But 
again  he  would  take  his  time  to  it,  looking  back  deliber 
ately  and  holding  Lucy's  soft  gray  eyes  with  his  own, 
which  would  smile  in  a  curious  fashion  as  he  quietly 
answered  her  question.  At  such  moments  I  would  see  a 
look  absentminded  and  absorbed  come  on  my  young  sis 
ter's  face.  What  was  she  up  to?  Flirting  with  Steve? 

"Not  at  all,"  I  decided.  Up  out  of  the  profundity  of 
my  knowledge  of  women  came  this  thought:  "She  isn't 
thinking  of  Steve  at  all — she's  thinking  of  that  lawyer 
man.  She's  trying  to  size  him  up  as  a  man  by  comparing 
him  with  the  rest  of  us,  and  her  feeling  for  him  with  her 
feeling  for  every  other  man  she  knows.  And  Steve  is  a 
fellow  she  has  known  ever  since  she  was  a  ki9.  So  she's 
using  him  as  a  measuring  stick." 

Pleased  with  my  own  perspicacity,  it  suddenly 
occurred  to  me  that  Lucy  was  my  sister,  that  I  was  very 
fond  of  her,  and  that  now  it  was  decidedly  up  to  me  to 
take  a  hand.  So  I  had  a  firm  talk  with  her  one  day, 
wherein  it  appeared  that  to  begin  with  she  was  more  and 
more  discontented  with  her  present  life.  Aunt  Fanny  she 
detested. 

"There's  something  so  sweetly  cocksure  about  her,  so 
sleek  and  contented !"  Lucy  exclaimed.  "And  the  way  she1 
uses  her  charms  on  poor  Dad  is  sickening,  perfectly  sick 
ening  !  At  his  age !  I'd  like  to  wring  her  neck !" 


BLIND  75 

So  much  for  home.  Outside  of  that,  the  endless  round 
of  clubs  and  classes,  parties  of  every  conceivable  kind. 
She  had  had  three  seasons,  more  than  enough.  Now  she 
wanted  to  break  away,  get  a  home  of  her  own  and  make 
a  fresh  start.  And  she  had  known  Kelly  Wallace  for 
years.  He  was  a  thoroughly  good  sort — honest,  kind  and 
always  good  fun. 

'That  may  be  true,"  I  retorted.  "But  there's  no  get 
ting  around  the  fact  that  the  fellow  is  a  lawyer."  She 
threw  at  me  a  quick  look  of  surprise. 

"Well,  what  of  it?  What  do  you  mean?" 

I  did  not  know  exactly. 

"Oh,  I  mean  he's  the  kind  that  will  never  let  anyone 
open  his  eyes  to  anything  new  that,  comes  along.  He's  a 
lawyer — and  for  all  you  know  he  may  even  become  a 
judge  some  day.  Would  you  enjoy  being  a  judge's 
wife?" 

"I  don't  know,"  she  said  in  a  half  startled  tone.  "I've 
never  stopped  to  think  of  it." 

"Well,"  I  warned  her  glumly,  "you'd  better  think  of 
it  now  while  there's  time." 

Then  she  gave  a  little  laugh. 

"When  did  you  get  this  hatred  of  lawyers?" 

"Oh,  I've  always  hated  the  brutes." 

"Larry!   You  haven't  any  such  thing!" 

On  my  attractive  sister's  face  came  a  look  of  pleased 
affection.  And  I  did  something  then  which  I  do  rather 
well — a  trick  few  Yankees  ever  attempt,  and  when  they 
do  they  bungle  it.  I  had  learned  it  from  a  friend,  a 
drunken  English  actor.  I  bent  over  Lucy's  hand  and 
kissed  it  very  nicely.  And  then  I  said, 

"Oh  yes,  I  have — ever  since  one  of  'em  tried  to  get 
you." 

"That's  very  sweet  of  you,  dear,"  she  murmured. 

"Well,  how  about  it?" 

"I  don't  know." 


76  BLIND 

"You  haven't  accepted  him,  have  you  ?" 

My  sister's  look  was  reminiscent. 

"No — yes,"  was  her  reply.     Up  i  bounded. 

"What  do  you  mean?" 

She  smiled  at  me  queerly. 

"I've  come  pretty  near  it,  I  guess,"  she  replied. 

"Confound  him " 

"Larry!" 

I  took  her  this  time  by  the  shoulders.  No  fool  gallan 
try  now! 

"Do  you  love  him?"  I  demanded.  "Enough  to  live 
with  him — all  your  life?" 

"Oh,  how  do  I  know?" 

And  Lucy  looked  so  doleful  then,  so  young  and  for 
lorn  and  alone  in  the  world,  that  I  then  and  there  deter 
mined  to  show  her  "real  life"  as  compared  to  the  fluffy 
existence  she  led,  and  at  the  same  time  to  reveal  to  her 
what  infinitely  finer  and  deeper  and  more  fascinating 
things  there  are  to  do  in  this  modern  world  than  to 
become  a  lawyer's  wife.  She  seemed  more  than  ready  to 
come  along.  Shamelessly  breaking  appointments  with 
"the  Judge,"  as  I  called  Wallace  now,  she  showed  herself 
so  eager  to  explore  the  larger  world  with  me,  that  I  was 
at  once  embarrassed.  How  was  I  going  to  make  good  ?  It 
is  easy  to  talk  about  all  that;  but  to  start  out  at  seven 
o'clock  of  an  evening  with  a  hungry  young  thing  who 
expects  to  be  transformed  for  life  by  the  great  seething 
world  you  show  her — let  me  tell  you  it's  no  easy  job. 
The  world  won't  seethe  to  order. 

Crime.  The  weird  tragic  dramas  of  life.  She  at  once 
suggested  a  look  into  that.  I  was  dubious ;  and  when  I 
advised  with  my  old  friend  Pop  Jehosaphat,  he  was  even 
more  doubtful  than  I.  Pop  knew  nothing  of  uptown  girls: 
He  had  met  one  once,  he  told  me;  but  at  the  time,  having 
murdered  her  father,  she  was  in  far  too  excited  a  state  to 
give  him  any  broad  insight  into  her  normal  habits  of 


BLIND  77 

thought.  He  demurred.  It  was  far  from  easy  to  get  him 
even  to  dine  with  us;  and  when  he  did  join  us  at  Mou- 
quin's  one  night,  having  had  a  hair-cut  and  donned  a 
dress  suit  that  caught  him  under  the  armpits,  he  heavily 
refused  to  thrill.  With  a  forced  smile,  in  a  pompous 
tone,  this  chap  who  could  hold  a  crowd  of  men  for  hours 
listening  to  his  talk,  his  tales  and  his  philosophies,  now 
cut  them  down  to  stories  and  remarks  so  very  trite,  that 
I  looked  on  him  with  gloomy  surprise — which  only 
increased  his  awkwardness.  It  was  a  dismal  evening. 

I  gave  up  Crime — it  wouldn't  do.  Vice?  It  was  impos 
sible.  The  Wanderlust?  More  promising.  Suppose  I 
brought  my  sister  in  touch  with  the  heaving  ocean  world  ? 
Certainly  that  was  large  enough,  and  it  ought  to  make 
"the  Judge"  look  tame. 

"Lucy,"  I  said,  "you  must  meet  the  Great  Dane." 

"Who?" 

"Mrs.    Dagmar,    the    woman    who    looks    after    our 


rooms." 


"An  right,"  said  Lucy  promptly.  "It's  about  time  you 
asked  me  there." 

And  I  took  her  down  the  following  week.  Mrs.  Dag- 
mar  was  at  first  rather  cold  and  ungracious ;  for  the  fact 
of  the  matter  was  that  her  ideas  of  cleanliness  were  as 
sensible  as  Steve's  and  mine,  and  no  doubt  she  expected 
insulting  remarks  as  to  trivial  dust  and  what  not.  But 
when  Lucy  showed  nothing  but  delight  in  our  lamp-lit 
studio  home,  the  Great  Dane  warmed  to  her  at  once.  She 
cooked  a  delicious  supper,  and  though  Steve  was  not  at 
home  that  night  we  had  a  successful  evening.  The  Great 
Dane  talked  of  the  Seven  Seas  with  a  convincing  earnest 
ness  and  a  wealth  of  vivid  detail.  Later  we  went  to  her 
flat;  and  she  told  such  stories  there,  to  fit  the  various 
curios,  that  my  sister  was  entranced. 

"Who  ever  would  have  dreamed/'  she  said,  "that  there! 


78  BLIND 

was  such  a  woman  in  New  York — or  such  a  home — or 
such  a  life?" 

"How  can  a  girl  dream  anything  in  that  stuffy  little 
Fifth  Avenue  world?" 

An  excellent  start,  and  greatly  encouraged  I  took  her 
out  for  a  look  at  the  slums.  Poverty  and  the  masses,  the 
surging  anger  of  the  poor — I  tried  earnestly  to  get  this 
feeling  over  to  my  sister.  In  that  small  radical  cafe  I 
sketched  the  rotten  state  of  things,  the  rank  injustice  in 
the  world,  the  hopelessness  of  any  appeal  to  the  smug  and 
easy  people  uptown,  the  deep  exciting  hope  in  the  thought 
that  all  over  the  earth  a  million  groups  were  rousing  to 
the  great  revolt.  I  surprised  her.  I  surprised  myself.  I1 
caught  a  look  on  her  face  that  said, 

"Why  Larry!    You  believe  all  this!" 

And  then  in  astonishment,  I  thought, 

"She's  right  about  it.   By  Golly,  I  do!" 

Things  went  splendidly  that  night — until,  as  my  voice 
grew  rather  loud,  I  attracted  attention  of  others  there; 
and  before  I  knew  it,  Lucy  and  I  were  facing  looks  of 
utter  contempt  from  all  over  the  little  room. 

"Look  at  him,"  they  seemed  to  say.  "A  young  million 
aire  showing  his  girl  the  slums  and  trying  to  pose  as  a 
genuine  Red." 

My  sister  grew  uneasy. 

"Shall  we  be  going,  Larry?"  she  asked.  I  growled 
assent.  And  gloomily,  as  I  paid  the  bill,  I  muttered, 

"The  revolution  is  all  right — but  the  chaps  who  are  in1 
it  have  two-spot  minds." 

They  had  taken  the  wind  out  of  my  sails.  With  the 
revolution  sagging  fast,  I  walked  her  around  the  streets 
for  a  while.  I  was  close  to  getting  sick  of  this  job.  Why 
should  not  Steve  lend  a  hand?  An  old  friend  of  Lucy's, 
wasn't  he?  And  yet  he  had  been  a  quitter — he  had  not 
lifted  a  hand  to  help!  I  threw  a  glance  at  my  sister. 


BLIND  7» 

Ever  since  we  left  the  cafe  she  had  been  silent.  Barely 
a  word.  What  was  going  on  in  her  mind?  Girls  were 
queer.  I  heaved  a  sigh.  It  was  one  of  those  warm  lifeless 
nights  that  come  sometimes  in  April. 

"Let's  go  over  to  the  rooms  and  see  if  Steve  is  back/* 
I  proposed.  And  this  time  we  found  him  there.  Bending 
over  a  table  under  a  green-shaded  light,  with  his  coat  off 
and  his  sleeves  rolled  up,  he  was  working  on  his  report. 

"That  you,  son?"  he  growled  comfortably. 

"Here's  Lucy." 

"What?" 

He  turned  with  a  start. 

"Oh — hello — good  evening."  Voice  husky  and  dis 
tinctly  tense.  My  sister  smiled. 

"Good  evening,  Steve — don't  put  on  your  coat — I 
won't  be  here  but  a  minute,"  she  said.  "I've:  wanted  so 
long  to  see  how  you  lived." 

Instantly  I  was  out  of  the  picture.  The  whole  atmos 
phere  of  the  evening  changed.  Lucy  was  a  different  girl. 
Though  giving  her  assurance  that  she  would  not  "bother 
him  long,  she  let  that  promise  slip  her  mind,  became 
intensely  serious  and  questioned  him  about  his  work;  and 
presently  with  her  color  high  she  was  telling  what  she 
had  seen  that  night — a  thin  young  mother  white  as  a 
sheet,  with  a  baby  in  her  arms,  a  crowd  of  small  girls  try 
ing  to  dance,  a  larger  girl  exceedingly  drunk,  a  number 
of  sick  people  "looking  like  ghosts."  Apparently  it  had 
hit  her  hard.  She  did  not  blame  these  people  at  all  for 
being  bitter.  "I  should  certainly  be,  in  their  place  !'J  As 
Lucy  talked,  Steve  watched  her  with  a  queer  steady  light 
in  his  eyes.  The  end  of  it  was  that  abruptly  she  asked  us 
now,  before  she  went  home,  to  take  her  up  into  the  Lung1 
Block. 

"Just  for  a  minute.  I'm  not  being  morbid.  But  I'll 
never  come  here  again — and  I  want  to  remember.  Just 
one  look." 


80  BLIND 

We  both  held  back,  but  she  insisted.  And  a  few  min 
utes  later,  having  entered  the  open  door  of  one  of  the 
worst  of  the  tenements  and  climbed  a  flight  of  the  filthy 
stairs,  in  the  dark  stinking  hall  above  we  stood  for  a 
moment  listening  to  the  heavy  creaking  steps,  low  cries, 
laughter,  muttering  voices,  that  came  from  various  parts 
of  the  house.  It  struck  me  as  even  worse  than  it  ever 
had  before.  Then  she  whispered, 

"Let's  go  now." 

Outside  she  seemed  a  little  faint.  Because  it  was  such 
a  muggy  night,  we  went  out  to  the  end  of  a  dock.  And 
out  there  on  the  shadowy  river,  with  the  big  bridge  over 
head,  the  slap  of  little  waves  beneath,  lights  white  and 
red  and  green  on  tugs  and  barges  moving  by,  we  said 
nothing  for  awhile. 

"This  is  better,"  ventured  Steve. 

"Yes,"  she  murmured.  "Wonderful."  Then  her  voice 
was  sharp  and  clear.  "But  how  soon  are  those  perfectly 
rotten  old  tenement  buildings  to  be  torn  down?" 

Again  silence. 

"I  don't  know,"  said  Steve. 

"And  how  soon  is  something  really  big  to  be  done," 
she  demanded,  "about  the  poor?" 

Steve  slowly  turned  and  looked  at  her. 

"Nothing  really  big  will  ever  be  done.  It'll  be  a  slow- 
tiresome  job,"  he  said,  "a  long  string  of  little  things — 
clean-up  jobs,  like  this  of  mine." 

"But  you're  soon  going  to  leave  all  this !" 

"How  am  I?" 

"You're  going  uptown !" 
-Yes,  but " 

"Larry,  too,"  she  interrupted.  "That's  just  it!  I'm 
not  blaming  you  both — I'd  do  the  same — because  I'm 
like  you — I  can  get  away!  That's  just  the  awful  part 
of  it!" 

"Awful?" 


BLIND  81 

"Oh,  I  mean  unfair!  Take  those  little  socialists  that 
Larry  showed  me  in  the  cafe.  They  really  mean  to 
change  all  this — and  not  take  ages  to  do  it,  either — 
because  they  are  in  it  and  can't  get  out!  But  for  that 
very  reason  their  thinking  must  be  so  muddled  and  blind 
— while  you  two  boys,  who  really  have  minds  and  train 
ing,  and  could  do  so  much — you'll  get  out  of  this — 
because  you  can !" 

Steve  started  to  speak,  but  she  broke  in : 

"You  will!   You'll  both  have  your  own  careers!" 

"How  about  you?"  he  asked  intensely.  She  gave  a 
sharp  little  laugh  and  said, 

"Oh  I  am  not  worth  thinking  about — a  mere  girl  from 
uptown  come  down  for  a  thrill !" 

"Well,  now  that  you've  had  it,  why  not  look  around 
for  a  job?" 

"What — for  instance?"  She  had  him  there,  and  she 
knew  it.  This  was  over  twenty  years  ago,  and  jobs  for 
women  were  still  few.  She  pressed  her  point  maliciously : 
%'Join  the  Salvation  Army?  Or  be  a  Bible  reader?  No, 
thanks!" 

"There  are  other  jobs."  He  was  silent  then,  and  I 
could  feel  him  thinking  quickly  of  other  kinds  of  work 
down  here.  Settlement  worker,  visiting  nurse,  investi 
gator — it  wouldn't  do.  Nothing  like  that  would  appeal 
to  her.  "No,"  he  said,  "I  guess  you're  right." 

"Thank  you.   I'll  go  back  uptown." 

She  did  not  come  to  our  rooms  again.  The  next  week 
I  gave  Steve  eight  hundred  dollars — proceeds  of  a  neck 
lace  she  had  sold.  With  this  money  he  saved  three  lives. 
When  I  told  her  about  them,  Lucy  said,  "I'm  glad  I've 
got  them  off  my  neck!"  So  much  for  Lucy  and  Pov 
erty.  A  few  days  later  I  brought  him  the  news  that  she 
was  engaged  to  her  lawyer  friend.  So  much  for  Lucy 
and  a  career. 

Steve  and  I  were  a  gloomy  pair.    In  glum  silence  he 


S2  BLIND 

wound  up  his  work,  and  I  heartily  damned  the  world 
uptown  for  having  spoiled  things  for  us  so.  My  gloom 
was  deepened  by  the  fact  that  in  spite  of  those  raw  eggs 
and  milk  I  was  running  a  temperature  each  night. 

So  the  last  weeks  of  our  year  together  dragged  on 
slowly  to  an  end. 


CHAPTER   V 

1. 

STEVE  finished  his  work  the  middle  of  May.  It  had 
been  a  bleak,  heart-sickening  job,  and  he  showed  the 
strain — not  so  much  in  his  tall  powerful  figure  as  in  his 
face.  He  looked  mentally  fagged.  He  went  home  for  a 
rest,  and  about  a  week  later  I  followed  him.  On  account 
of  that  slight  touch  of  fever,  he  insisted  that  I  spend  at 
least  a  month  at  Seven  Pines. 

I  arrived  on  a  Saturday  evening,  had  a  long  refresh 
ing  sleep,  and  got  up  in  time  to  go  to  church  with  my 
aunt  and  Dorothy.  It  was  good  to  sit  in  the  family  pew, 
listen  to  the  chirping  of  birds  and  the  stamping  of 
horses  hitched  outside,  and  drowsily  dream  back  into  the 
days  when  Steve  and  Lucy  and  I  were  small.  I  caught 
sight  of  Steve.  He  was  watching  me.  And  to  my  little 
start  of  surprise  that  asked,  "What  the  devil  are  you 
doing  here?" — his  smile  replied,  "I'm  the  minister's  son." 
And  his  eyes  turned  back  to  his  father.  That  afternoon 
I  went  with  him  for  a  walk  back  through  the  hills,  which 
were  lovely  and  fresh  in  the  late  spring.  As  we  tramped 
along  we  began  to  remember  various  things  we  had  done 
as  boys.  But  then  he  spoke  of  his  father,  and  his  expres 
sion  became  grim. 

"What's  the  trouble?"  I  inquired.  "Has  he  been  sav 
ing  your  soul  again  ?" 

"Oh,  yes,  the  usual  wrestling  match.  But  I  expected 
that — rather  liked  it,  in  fact.  This  is  home,'  I  thought 
as  I  went  to  bed.  It  was  good,  the  first  few  days,  to  feel 
everything  so  exactly  the  same.  Then  I  found  I  was 

83 


84  BLIND 

wrong.  I've  been  jogging  about  in  his  buggy  with  him 
— and  although  he  didn't  talk  much,  the  little  he  said 
made  me  ask  him  more.  I  tell  you,  son,  this  place  has 
changed.  The  cheery  faith  and  habits  of  our  Puritan 
fathers  are  going,  busted  high  as  a  kite.  Your  dad's 
mill  town  has  filled  up  with  Wops  and  Huns  and  Pol 
lacks.  There  are  Catholic  priests;  there  are  anarchists 
who  get  together  in  saloons  and  shout  all  night  against 
the  rich.  My  father  started  a  mission  there,  but  the 
priests  and  the  Reds  between  them  drove  him  out.  He 
f^ll  back  to  the  village — but  even  here,  a  half  dozen  fam 
ilies  of  Wops  have  started  market  gardens;  and  at  night 
along  the  road,  if  you  were  Dad  in  his  parsonage,  you'd 
hear  loud  voices  coming  by — foreign  voices,  laughing, 
shouting,  singing  their  queer  foreign  songs — especially 
Saturday  night  when  they're  drunk,  and  Dad's  trying  to 
write  his  sermon  inside.  Those  chaps  are  gangs  of  labor 
ers,  building  homes  for  millionaires.  For  the  boom  is 
creeping  out  from  New  York,  and  the  old  farms  are 
being  bought  and  turned  into  big  estates.  There'll  soon 
be  a  large  and  very  expensive  country  house  on  every 
hill.  They're  planning  to  build  an  Episcopal  church. 

"And  against  all  this,"  Steve  went  on  softly,  "my 
father  is  as  bitter  as  hell.  In  the  past  Le  was  a  stand-pat 
ter.  Now  he's  a  rebel — he's  lost  in  the  woods — or  the 
wilderness,  as  he  would  say.  He  has  only  just  hinted  it  to 
me — but  it's  queer,  this  business  of  father  and  son.  For 
all  the  two  quite  different  worlds  we  have  inside  each  one 
of  us,  still  there's  some  queer  blood  tie  that  makes  me  un 
derstand  him.  A  word  or  two,  and  I  get  the  rest.  Thank 
God  for  those  buggy  rides.  Things  ease  up  then.  We 
talk  of  the  Gerps.  That's  one  thing  we  have  left  between 
us — we  both  like  to  watch  things  grow.  Oats  have  no 
souls  for  Dad  to  save,  and  so  he  gets  on  fine  with  oats — 
shows  'em  his  decent  human  side. 

"I  wonder  what  we're  coming  to.    I'm  glad  the  hard 


BLIND  85 

old  Puritan  days  are  gone  for  good  with  their  heaven 
and  hell — but  if  in  their  place  we  are  to  get  nothing 
more  inspiring  than  a  rich  man's  house  for  heaven  and  a 
T.  B.  slum  for  hell,  I  don't  know  as  we've  moved  a  lot. 
Science  is  the  answer,  I  guess.  There  isn't  much  hope  in 
anything  else.  Anyhow  I'll  be  glad  to  get  back."  He 
laughed  and  ended  shortly,  "I'm  a  poor  philosopher.  Be 
glad  to  quit  thinking  and  handle  a  knife." 

It  was  good  to  see  him  brighten  up  when  I  took  him 
home  to  supper.  My  aunt  had  always  been  friendly  to 
Steve,  but  tonight  her  welcoming  smile  had  something 
uncommon  about  it.  She  was  all  keyed  up,  fairly  beam 
ing  with  life;  while  as  for  Dorothy,  aged  fourteen,  she 
was  bursting  with  significance.  There  were  two  women 
visitors  from  the  West,  and  they  seemed  to  be  in  the 
secret,  too.  All  four  had  the  refreshed  and  satisfied 
appearance  which  only  a  long  afternoon  of  the  very  live 
liest  gossip  can  bring.  My  aunt's  two  friends — both  of 
them  married,  with  children  grown — were  like  school 
girls  off  on  a  spree.  It  was  their  first  trip  East  in  years, 
and  they  were  making  the  most  of  it.  The  day  before, 
she  had  taken  them  on  a  shopping  trip  to  the  city.  She 
keenly  enjoyed  these  trips  to  New  York.  In  spite  of  her 
talk  against  the  place,  she  loved  to  see  the  new  fashions, 
the  shops  with  all  their  brilliant  display,  the  bustle  and 
sparkle  and  dash  of  the  town.  It  was  a  wonderful  city 
to  visit.  The  only  trouble  was,  she  said,  that  so  many 
Americans  stayed  in  New  York,  and  there  they  brought 
tip  children  who  had  no  connection  with  any  real  life. 

"Take  Lucy,  for  example." 

At  that,  with  a  queer  little  snort,  my  cousin  Dorothy 
turned  to  Steve;  and  when  she  saw  him  stiffen  a  bit,  she 
fairly  wriggled  with  delight.  Her  mother  was  talking 
placidly  on.  Lucy  was  such  a  dear  girl,  she  declared. 
This  was  her  real  home,  and  when  she  was  here  she  at 
once  became  so  different  that  you  realized  the  pity  of  the 


86  BLIND 

empty  artificial  life  the  girl  was  leading  in  New  York. 
It  made  an  orchid  of  a  girl — with  no  roots  in  anything. 
At  that,  Steve  said  abruptly, 

"Well,  she's  going  to  marry  now.  And  when  she  gets 
a  home  of  her  own " 

"I  doubt  if  she'll  ever  marry  that  man,"  Aunt  Amelia 
interrupted.  "He  isn't  half  good  enough  for  her,  and 
I've  as  good  as  told  her  so.  She  is  coming  up  here  the 
end  of  the  week,  and  I  want  you  boys  to  help  me  keep 
her  here  till  she  knows  her  own  mind.  No  need  to  give 
advice  to  her.  Her  home  will  do  the  talking." 

A  little  later,  Steve  rose  to  go. 

"Bring  your  father  to  supper  tomorrow  night,"  said 
Aunt  Amelia  cordially.  "It's  time  we  were  deciding  on 
plans  for  Decoration  Day." 

After  Steve  had  left  us,  my  aunt's  two  visitors  went  to 
bed. 

"Now,  Larry,"  she  informed  me,  in  a  brisk  but  rather 
tremulous  tone,  "I've  some  news  for  you.  Your  sister  has 
broken  her  engagement." 

"What?" 

Aunt  Amelia  nodded  her  head. 

"She  was  here  last  week  and  we  had  a  long  talk.  She 
asked  my  advice  and  I  gave  it.  Then  she  went  back  to 
New  York  to  decide.  And  this  afternoon  she  telegraphed, 
'You  were  right.  I  am  coming  home'." 

Young  Dorothy  and  I  grabbed  hands  and  gayly 
waltzed  about  the  room.  She  stopped  and  declared 
impressively, 

"Now  we'll  marry  her  off  to  Steve  McCrea!" 

"Dorothy/'  said  ,her  mother,  "it's  high  time  you  were 
in  bed.  Lucy  will  marry  nobody  whatever." 

"Oh,  yes,  she  will,  darling,"  Dorothy  drawled;  and 
then  with  a  little  squeal  she  rushed  at  her  mother  and 
hugged  her  tight. 

On  the  morrow  my  aunt's  two  visitors  left.     In  the 


BLIND  87 

evening  Steve  and  his  father  came;  and  at  first  the  con 
versation  was  of  Decoration  Day,  which  ever  since  I 
could  recall  had  been  a  great  time  in  our  family.  Aunt 
Amelia's  husband,  whose  army  surgeon's  uniform  hung 
in  a  tall  glass  case  in  the  hall,  had  headed  the  small  pro 
cession  of  Civil  War  veterans  to  the  graves  in  the  ceme 
tery  up  the  hill.  Since  his  death,  my  aunt  and  Mr.  McCrea 
had  been  the  leading  spirits  in  making  the  arrangements. 
The  old  clergyman  had  been  a  mere  boy  in  1861,  and  to 
his  keen  disappointment  had  not  been  able  to  join  the 
army  until  just  at  the  end.  But  ever  since  then,  in  his 
somber  way,  he  had  been  a  staunch  upholder  of  the  War's 
traditions  here.  And  now  his  present  bitterness  was  fur 
ther  deepened  by  the  fact  that  this  annual  memory  day 
was  being  neglected.  The  few  old  veterans  still  alive 
marched  to  the  graves  with  their  families,  but  the  for 
eigners  who  had  come  in  knew  little  or  nothing  about  the 
War.  Tonight,  however,  it  appeared  that- a  German  mili 
tia  company  composed  of  working  men  in  Dad's  mills 
had  offered  to  join  in  the  parade.  Old  Mr.  McCrea  was 
against  it;  he  was  for  turning  their  offer  down.  But 
Aunt  Amelia  disagreed.  She  spoke  of  the  splendid  rec 
ord  the  Germans  in  Wisconsin  had  made  in  the  war  of 
long  ago.  Why  not  welcome  their  countrymen  into  the 
march?  What  was  America,  anyway,  if  not  a  country 
that  welcomed  into  its  very  heart  and  soul  all  new 
comers  from  over  the  seas? 

Finally  she  won  her  point.  She  turned  the  conversa 
tion  then  to  Steve  and  the  work  he  had  done  in  New 
York — "fine  practical  Christianity."  She  went  on  to  link 
his  work  with  mine.  She  had  been  a  great  reader  of  Bel- 
amy,  Howells.  I  was  following  in  their  footsteps  now. 
From  books  she  jumped  to  ranches.  Her  son  Ed  had 
already  left  his  uncle  and  started  a  hog  ranch  of  his  own. 
My  father  was  helping  him  to  start.  She  dwelt  on  Dad's 
keen  liking  for  self-made  young  Americans,  and  on  his 


88  BLIND 

equally  keen  dislike  for  Lucy's  young  men  friends  in 
New  York — "young  fly-up-the-creeks,"  she  called  them 
' — who  danced  all  night  and  as  a  result  were  good  for 
nothing  the  next  day.  Aunt  Amelia  was  nearing  her  cli 
max  now,  and  her  voice  was  taking  on  the  gentle  quiet 
tremulous  tone  it  had  when  breaking  some  big  news. 
Lucy  was  such  a  dear  girl,  she  declared.  She  "came  out" 
so  when  she  was  here.  And  she  would  be  here  in  a  few 
Jdays  more.  ...  At  this  point  my  cousin  Dorothy, 
excitedly  rigid  in  her  chair  and  with  her  vivid  round  blue 
eyes  fixed  on  Steve,  said  slowly  and  impressively, 

"Not  only  here  but  marriageable !  She  has  broken  her 
engagement" 

And  when  at  that  Steve's  big  hands  left  his  knees  with 
a  startled  jerk,  she  placidly  folded  her  plump  arms  and 
winked  at  her  mother  and  at  me. 


2. 

On  the  eve  of  Decoration  Day,  Lucy  and  Dad  came 
out  from  town;  and  together  the  next  morning,  with 
piles  of  wreaths  and  flowers,  we  drove  to  the  small  grave 
yard.  Steve  was  waiting  for  us.  As  had  been  our  cus 
tom,  very  little  was  said  at  first;  an  expectant  hush  hung 
over  the  graves.  There  were  several  "old  families"  here, 
and  in  buggies  or  wagons  or  afoot  others  were  arriving. 
Remembering  what  Steve  had  said,  I  began  to  notice 
newcomers — groups  of  foreign  laborers,  their  women  and 
children  dressed  up  for  a  holiday  and  plainly  curious  to 
know  what  we  were  waiting  for.  At  first  they  spoke 
in  loud  gay  voices;  but  meeting  the  frowns  and  disap 
proving  looks  of  the  old  families,  they  caught  the  funereal 
hush  of  the  place.  Their  children  giggled,  whispered, 
squirmed.  A  "horseless  carriage"  came  puffing  up — 
doubtless  from  onei  of  the  new  estates.  This  arrival,  too, 
was  greeted  by  frowns  from  all  but  Aunt  Amelia,  who 
welcomed  it  with  a  sunny  smile.  Then  suddenly  her  face 


BLIND  89 

assumed  that  solemn  tender  \  reverent  look  which  had 
often  thrilled  me  as  a  boy.  ^ 

"Mine  Eyes  Have  Seen  the  Glory  of  the  Coming  of 
the  Lord."* 

The  music  of  the  little  band  could  be  heard  far  down 
the  hill,  and  as  we  rose  to  our  feet  we  caught  sight  of  the 
small  procession  winding  up  the  hillside  road.  Behind 
the  band  came  a  score  of  old  men  in  faded  blue  uniforms, 
bearing  a  flag.  Steve's  father  led  them ;  and  the  rear  was 
brought  up  by  the  German  militia,  some  fifty  husky  look 
ing  lads  with  rifles  on  their  shoulders,  their  good-natured 
faces  grown  solemn  and  stern  for  the  occasion. 

When  we  had  come  close  around  a  little  row  of  sol 
diers'  graves,  Steve's  father  standing  with  bared  head 
repeated  Lincoln's  great  address : 

"Four  score  and  seven  years  ago,  our  fathers  brought 
forth  on  this  continent  a  new  nation,  conceived  in  liberty, 
and  dedicated  to  the  propositon  that  all  men  are  created 
equal." 

As  he  went  on,  I  glanced  around  and  caught  the  look 
on  the  face  of  my  aunt.  She  was  standing  very  straight, 
her  head  nodding  slightly,  and  on  her  lips  was  a  smile 
that  said, 

"Yes,  it  has  always  been,  and  is  and  ever  shall  be,  a 
country  so  great  and  wonderful,  that  if  I  am  not  very 
careful  I  shall  soon  be  crying  a  little,  my  dears/' 

The  smile  was  still  there  when  a  few  minutes  later  she 
came  forward  out  of  the  crowd,  and  stooping  very  care 
fully  placed  a  big  wreath  of  apple  blossoms  at  the  head 
of  her  husband's  grave. 

Later,  at  a  sharp  guttural  order,  up  went  the  German 
rifles  firing  a  salute  for  the  dead.  A  bugle  gently  blowing 
Taps  Figures  moving  slowly  about  heaping  flowers  on 
the  graves.  And  the  ceremony  was  at  an  end. 

On  the  drive  home  young  Dorothy  placed  herself 
beside  me,  She  wanted  to  talk  of  Lucy  and  Steve, 


90  BLIND 

"Larry/*  she  said,  "if  you  don't  help  me  see  this 
though,  I'll  never  forgive  you!  I'm  all  alone!  Lucy  is 
thinking  of  going  abroad — and  Mother  will  simply  not 
lift  a  hand.  We've  got  to  get  very  busy !" 

We  did.  When  Steve  stopped  coming  to  the  house, 
we  arranged  parties  to  lure  him  there;  but  we  made  so 
little  progress  that  Dorothy  fairly  ground  her  teeth. 
"Nothing  I  can  do  or  say  will  induce  those  two  to  be  left 
alone!"  We  went  to  Aunt  Amelia  for  help.  "Mother! 
What  on  earth  can  we  do?" 

"Do  nothing,  my  dear.   It  is  none  of  our  business." 

And  knitting  very  slowly  at  first  but  faster  and  faster 
as  she  talked,  Aunt  Amelia  proceeded  to  make  it  our 
business.  With  deep  enjoyment  we  entered  into  one  of 
those  family  councils  so  dear  to  the  hearts  of  us  all. 

"Neither  of  them,"  she  declared,  "is  in  condition  to 
come  to  any  clear  decision  on  anything." 

"Then  they're  in  just  the  condition  to  get  engaged!" 
cried  Dorothy.  Her  mother  looked  at  her  dryly. 

"That's  quite  precocious  in  you,  my  dear.  But  how  do 
we  know  they're  in  love  with  each  other  ?" 

With  zest  and  deliberation  we  proceeded  to  analyze 
them  both.  Steve,  we  decided,  had  every  reason  against 
asking  Lucy  to  marry  him.  Her  father  was  rich  and 
Steve  was  poor.  He  still  had  his  way  to  make.  No,  not 
quite — for  Bannard,  his  chief,  had  taken  him  on  as  one 
of  his  surgeon  assistants  uptown.  Hundreds  of  other 
young  doctors  probably  envied  him  his  chance.  How 
much  was  he  likely  to  earn  the  first  year?  Not  over  three 
thousand  at  the  most — very  little  for  Lucy  to  live  on. 

"But  it  would  do  her  good  to  live  on  it!"  cried  Dor 
othy,  almost  with  a  wail  "And  besides,  she  wouldn't 
have  to!  She'd  still  have  her  allowance — and  clothes 
enough  for  years  and  years!  And  the  wedding  presents 
would  furnish  the  house!" 

We  bent  our  minds  on  Lucy  now.    It  would  be  the 


BLIND  91 

best  thing  in  the  world  for  her  to  marry  a  chap  like 
Steve  McCrea.  At  home  she  was  far  from  happy.  Aunt 
Fanny  and  she  simply  could  not  get  on.  This  much  was 
in  favor  of  the  match.  But  on  the  other  hand  was  the 
fact  that  Lucy  had  just  rejected  a  man  who,  in  spite  of 
being  a  lawyer,  was  an  undeniably  decent  sort.  She  was 
used  to  him,  she  liked  him,  she  might  have  been  happy 
as  his  wife.  No  doubt  she  was  telling  herself  that  now, 
half  angry  at  having  given  him  up. 

"And  who  knows?"  I  put  in,  with  the  irony  of  a  man 
who  is  twenty-one  years  old  and  has  seen  the  devil  of  a 
lot — "Who  knows  but  what,  woman  fashion,  she's 
blaming  her  broken  engagement  on  Steve?" 

"In  addition  to  which,"  cried  Dorothy,  "she  has  been 
invited  to  go  abroad.  She  has  that  to  decide — and  she 
hates  to  decide — just  hates  it!" 

We  emerged  from  our  council  no  farther  on  then 
when  we  began,  but  with  the  restful  feeling  which  only 
such  confabs  can  give.  We  came  back  to  our  starting 
point.  It  was  none  of  our  business.  Leave  it  alone. 

The  next  day  I  took  Lucy  and  Steve  for  a  walk.  I 
suggested  it  in  the  most  genial  mood,  as  though  prom 
ising  they  could  count  on  me  to  be  the  life  of  the  party. 
But  once  we  were  off,  I  dropped  all  effort  to  keep  up  the 
talk;  and  after  a  few  impatient  looks  cast  in  my  direc 
tion,  my  kid  sister,  obeying  the  law  of  her  world  which 
ordained  that  silence. was  a  crime,  began  to  fill  in  with 
small  talk ;  and  when  this  failed,  she  went  on  to  display  a 
kind  sisterly  interest  in  the  futures  of  us  both.  Mine, 
however,  was  soon  dropped  and  our  attention  was 
focussed  on  Steve.  What  kind  of  a  life  did  he  really 
want?  Would  he  live  uptown  or  still  with  me?  Who 
would  be  his  patients?  What  people  did  he  want  for 
friends?  On  call  at  all  hours  day  and  night,  how  could 
he  have  any  life  of  his  own? 

I  was  more  than  satisfied.    Plainly  she  was  trying  to 


92  BLIND 

picture  herself  as  a  surgeon's  wife.  Moreover,  they  were 
talking  now. 

"What  chances  you  men  have/*  she  said. 

"So  do  you,"  retorted  Steve.  "You  can  do  anything 
you  like." 

She  indignantly  denied  it.  Both  Dad  and  Aunt  Fanny 
held  her  back. 

"They  do  nothing  of  the  kind,"  he  replied.  He  had 
her  there,  and  she  dropped  the  point.  Her  whole  bring 
ing  up  was  the  trouble,  she  said. 

"You've  had  a  mighty  good  bringing  up — right  here 
at  your  Aunt  Amelia's,"  said  Steve. 

She  threw  an  angry  look  at  him.  Next  she  blamed 
her  boarding  school.  It  had  been  "too  useless  for  any 
words." 

"All  right,"  he  answered  doggedly,  "but  the  boarding 
school  was  your  own  idea.  Yes,  it  was — I  remember  per 
fectly  well  how  you  kept  at  your  aunt  till  she  let  you  go." 

A  furious  silence  followed  that,  and  glancing  at  Steve 
with  keen  relish  I  saw  he  was  worried  under  his  smile, 
cursing  himself  for  having  been  so  all-fired  blunt  with 
this  girl.  He  was  in  a  hole  and  could  see  no  escape.  I 
caught  a  glimpse  of  Lucy's  face.  Her  anger  was  gone. 
She  read  Steve  like  a  book,  and  looked  not  only  amused 
but  pleased  at  his  evident  uneasiness. 

"Well,  then,"  she  said  gravely,  "having  been  such  a 
perfect  fool  from  start  to  finish,  apparently — what  do 
you  think  I'd  better  do?" 

He  told  her  that  he  didn't  know.  So  I  came  in  with 
suggestions.  One  after  the  other  she  tossed  them  aside. 

"Well,  Sis,"  I  said  finally,  "I  see  nothing  else  for  you 
but  to  marry  and  settle  down."  Lucy  answered  gloomily : 

"I  can  imagine  nothing  worse." 

Then  Steve  pulled  himself  together.  With  a  smile  that 
was  almost  natural  he  said, 

"Look  here,  Lucy,  the  thing  for  you  is  to  spend  the 


BLIND  93 

whole  summer  right  where  you  are4.  Get  strong  and  for 
get  your  city  nerves.  Talk  with  your  aunt  and  think 
yourself  out." 

"I  guess  you're  right,"  said  Lucy.  "Yes,  I  think  that's 
what  I'll  do." 

The  next  day  she  announced  she  was  going  abroad. 
At  once  in  wild  excitement  Dorothy  summoned  her 
mother  and  me  to  another  family  council. 

"I  tell  you,"  she  cried  angrily,  "something  simply  must 
be  done!" 

"But  what?"  I  rejoined.  She  racked  her  brains.  Her 
mother  serenely  darned  a  sock. 

"Your  father  is  coming  out  tonight,"  she  told  me, 
"and  he's  bringing  a  friend — Doctor  Bannard."  I  looked 
at  her  sharply: 

"You  mean  Steve's  chief?" 

"Exactly."    I  leaned  forward: 

"And  you  mean?" 

"That's  twice  you've  said  'You  mean',"  said  Aunt 
Amelia  composedly.  Young  Dorothy  was  shaking  her. 

"What  is  it?"  she  demanded. 

"Well,"  said  Aunt  Amelia,  "Steve  seems  to  me  to  be 
suffering  from  a  little  too  much  modesty.  And  I  think 
it  may  do  him  good  to  hear,  from  a  man  whose  opinion 
he  respects,  what  kind  of  a  future  he's  likely  to  have  and 
how  soon  he  is  likely  to  have  it." 

"In  other  words,"  cried  Dorothy,  "how  soon  he'll  be 
able  to  marry!" 

"What  a  very  subtle  child  you  are,"  her  mother 
said  admiringly. 

"Is  Dad  in  this?"  I  inquired. 

"No,"  said  she.  "Your  father  and  Doctor  Bannard 
have  come  to  be  very  good  friends,  that's  all.  So  he's 
bringing  the  doctor  out  for  the  night." 

The  plan  worked  splendidly.  Steve  was  invited  over 
to  dinner;  and  sitting  here  by  Lucy's  side  he  heard  things 


34  BLIND 

said  about  himself  that  would  have  encouraged  any 
young  man  to  take  half  a  dozen  wives.  Old  Bannard 
beamed  upon  my  aunt,  who  had  captivated  him  at  the 
start,  and  in  response  to  her  questions  he  enlarged  upon 
his  pride  in  the  record  Steve  had  made  in  New  York. 
He  envied  Steve  his  youth,  he  declared.  Jobs  so  tremen 
dous  loomed  ahead.  People  from  all  over  the  earth  were 
crowding  by  millions  into  our  cities.  An  ominous  rest 
lessness  was  there,  which  was  bound  to  play  the  devil 
unless  we  went  after  its  cause  with  a  knife.  Clean  out  the 
sweatshops  and  the  slums,  build  hospitals,  dispensaries, 
and  open  parks  and  playgrounds!  My  aunt  resumed  her 
questions  now,  and  from  the  answers  it  appeared  that  not 
only  was  Steve  to  save  the  world  but  to  lead  an  exceed 
ingly  wonderful  life — with  money  in  plenty,  a  big  posi 
tion,  friends  of  the  most  brilliant  kind,  ideas  crackling  all 
about.  When  Bannard  finished,  there  was  no  doubt  that 
whoever  married  Steve  would  be  a  mighty  lucky  girl. 
And  it  was  all  I  could  do,  by  a  good  grip  on  Dorothy's 
arm,  to  keep  her  from  stating  that  fact  aloud.  Lucy 
looked  distinctly  tense. 

"That,"  said  Bannard  enviously,  "is  the  chance  ahead 
for  this  boy  and  his  like — that  is,  if  they're  backed  as 
they  ought  to  be." 

"They  will  be,"  said  my  father. 

Whereupon  Aunt  Amelia  smiled  and  said  we  would 
have  our  coffee  outside. 

So  we  went  out  under  the  stars  for  awhile. 


3. 

Lucy  had  planned  to  leave  the  next  day,  and  Steve 
came  over  to  say  goodbye.  I  happened  to  be  with  her 
when  he  abruptly  entered  the  room.  I  made  for  the  door, 
but  before  I  got  through  it  I  heard  him  say, 

"Look  here,  why  are  you  going  abroad  ?"  Voice  quiv 
ering  but  very  strong.  I  went  on  up  the  hallway,  but 


BLIND  95 

through  an  adjoining  room  their  voices  came  to  me 
again. 

"Yes,  you  do,"  he  said  in  a  low  sharp  tone.  "Or  if  you 
don't,  I'm  done  for.  I  want  you  so  I  can't  go  on.  You 
care  for  me,  Lucy — yes,  you  do* — look  up  at  me — it 
means  so  much!  You're  unhappy — you  want  something 
else !  I  can  give  it — I  mean  I'll  try  so  hard !"  His  voice 
became  so  husky  and  low  I  could  make  nothing  of  it 
now.  "You  are  like  that,"  he  ended. 

"Oh  Steve,  I'm  not !  I'm  really  not !  If  you  only  knew 
me  through  and  through " 

"I  do !"  he  cried.  "What  do  I  care  for  the  last  few 
years?  I  knew  you,  didn't  I,  here  as  a  kid — from  the 
time  when  you  were  nothing  at  all!  And  that's  what 
counts — what  makes  a  girl!  You've  known  me,  too,  in 
just  that  way!  And  nothing  else  under  the  moon  and 
the  stars " 

I  heard  a  heavy  step  outside,  and  sneaking  frantically 
to  the  door  I  reached  it  just  as  it  was  thrown  open  by 
Ed,  my  young  cousin,  arrived  from  his  ranch,  stout  and 
hearty  as  a  bull.  He  had  not  seen  his  home  for  a  year. 
As  he  opened  his  mouth  to  shout,  "Hello!" — I  stopped 
him  by  a  terrible  contortion  of  my  features.  Ed  shrank 
back,  then  grabbed  my  hand. 

"What  the  hell's  the  matter?"  he  whispered. 

"Sh-h!" 

"Mother  sick?" 

I  gripped  his  arm,  and  tip-toeing  like  a  Wild  Indian 
I  got  him  down  into  the  yard.  Briefly  I  explained  to 
him.  And  because,  though  he  was  slow  in  speech  Ed 
was  a  fellow  quick  to  act,  he  conducted  me  to  the  living- 
room  window  and  boosted  me  up  for  a  look  inside.  In 
an  instant  I  dropped  to  the  ground.  Around  the  house  we 
hurried  and  up  to  Aunt  Amelia's  room,  and  a  scene  of  the 
most  frenzied  kind  took  place  in  the  next  few  moments 
there.  Ed's  coming  was  a  complete  surprise;  and  no 


96  BLIND 

sotmer  had  his  mother  begun  to  take  in  the  astonishing 
fact  that  her  beloved  son  was  home,  than  into  the  tumult 
I  lightly  tossed  the  news  from  below.  Joy  redoubled. 
Prancing  'round  like  a  young  goat,  Dorothy  turned 
abruptlly,  rushed  out  and  down  the  stairs  to  explore;  and 
presently  there  came  to  our  ears  from  the  piano,  sweet 
and  low,  the  stately  Lohengrin  Wedding  March. 

The  rest  of  the  day  I  recall  as  a  bedlam  of  laughter, 
kisses,  wedding  plans,  ranches,  hogs  and  white  tulle  over 
satin.  My  aunt  was  getting  Ed  in  one  ear  and  Lucy  and 
Steve  in  the  other.  I  remember  Dorothy  throwing  the 
gowns  joyously  out  of  Lucy's  trunks,  to  the  tune  of  "Oh 
That  Golden  Wedding!"  The  wedding  was  to  be  right 
here.  That  much  was  decided  at  the  start.  The  talk  ran 
on  far  into  the  future,  into  a  jumble  of  plans  and  dreams 
— till  Aunt  Amelia  brought  us  back. 

"Steve,"  she  said,  "I  think  you  had  better  go  to  see 
Lucy's  father  tonight."  Steve  sobered  quickly: 

"I'd  thought  of  that.  I'm  going  to  town  this  after 
noon." 

"He'll  be  perfectly  radiant!"  Dorothy  cried.  Her 
mother  smiled  a  bit  queerly  and  said, 

"He  will  be  eventually,  my  dear." 

I  went  with  Steve  that  afternoon.  In  the  city  I  left  him 
to  his  fate,  but  meeting  him  later  that  evening  I  learned 
about  his  interview. 

My  father,  it  seemed,  had  sharply  changed  from  the 
most  genial  friendliness  to  dumbfounded  indignation 
over  the  outrageous  news  that  Steve  wanted  Lucy  for  a 
wife.  The  idea  had  never  entered  Dad's  head.  And  his 
love  for  Lucy,  his  deep  dislike  of  changes  in  his  house 
hold,  his  dread  of  how  Aunt  Fanny  would  take  it,  all 
combined  to  bring  on  an  explosion  that  pretty  nearly 
sent  Steve  away  in  a  volcanic  state  of  mind.  It  was 
Aunt  Fanny  who  saved  the  day.  Hearing  the  voices,  she 
came  in;  and  on  learning  the  news,  she  declared  herself 


BLIND  97 

ar  once  in  favor  of  the  match.  Engrossed  as  she  was  in 
her  newborn  babe  and  her  two  other  children;  and  after 
a  long  confinement  pleased  to  be  once  more  beginning 
the  luxurious  life  she  loved,  it  was  hard  to  make  Aunt 
Fanny  feel  that  any  event  was  a  tragedy — least  of  all 
one  that  involved  setting  her  smooth  household  free  from 
its  sole  disturbing  element.  She  had  honestly  tried  her 
best  to  make  Lucy  happy.  She  had  failed.  So  she  gladly 
gave  Steve  her  blessing  and  advised  Dad  to  do  the  same. 
Then  Steve1,  who  was  still  on  his  high  horse,  said  that 
he  wanted  it  understood  that  if  he  married  Lucy  they 
would  live  on  his  earnings  from  the  start.  Snort 
from  my  father.  Frown  from  Steve,  who  insisted 
that  Bannard  be  called  in — "to  give  you  the  facts  as  to 
whether  or  not  I'll  be  able  to  support  a  wife."  This  was 
done.  And  old  Bannard  was  so  strong  and  convincing  in 
his  backing,  that  as  soon  as  he  left  the  house  my  father 
gripped  Steve  by  the  hand. 

"All  right,  my  boy— I  talked  like  a  fool.  And  I  like 
the  way  you  took  it." 

Well  over  his  astonishment,  the  more  Dad  thought 
about  the  match  the  better  he  liked  it.  Thank  Heaven  the 
girl  had  shown  the  sense  to  steer  clear  of  her  titty-tatty 
friends  and  pick  for  a  husband  a  real  young  man.  He 
told  her  so  when  she  came  the  next  day;  and  to  his  sur 
prise  this  grown  daughter  of  his,  who  had  always  been 
far  from  demonstrative,  suddenly  threw  herself  into  his 
arms  and  wept  on  his  shoulder. 

"Oh  Dad,  Dad — it  means  so  much — so  much  to  have 
you  feel  like  that !" 

Even  with  her  stepmother  Lucy  got  on  famously  now, 
for  the  two  were  bound  together  by  the  weird  conviction 
that,  no  matter  how  many  hundred  thousand  articles  of 
clothing  a  girl  has  in  her  wardrobe,  she  must  begin  shop-, 
ping  all  over  again  if  she  is  to  become  a  wife.  So  they 
bought  clothes;  and  after  that  they  set  about  furnishing 


98  BLIND 

a  house,  a  small  one  down  near  Washington  Square, 
•which  Lucy  and  Steve  had  selected  after  looking  at  scores 
of  apartments. 

Steve  was  back  in  the  city  and  working  hard.  They 
were  to  be  married  the  end  of  August.  Only  one  week 
for  a  wedding  trip,  for  that  was  all  they  could  afford — 
and  Lucy,  when  not  buying  things,  was  firmly  enthused 
at  the  prospect  of  being  "poor,"  of  living  downtown, 
with  a  mere  box  of  a  house  for  a  home,  and  only  a  cook 
and  one  other  maid.  Everything  goes  by  comparison.  She 
could  talk  like  that  in  our  father's  house;  but  with  Steve 
and  me  in  our  old  rooms,  when  the  Lung  Block  on  those 
stifling  nights  like  some  enormous  creature  alive  would 
glare  out  of  a  thousand  eyes,  belch  heat  and  stinking 
odors,  and  in  a  raucous  quivering  roar  would  declare — 
"I  am  Poverty.  I  am  the  fiery  furnace  of  all  the  ages.  I 
am  Hell" — then  would  my  young  sister  vow  that  it 
seemed  perfectly  criminal  for  Steve  and  herself  to  have 
so  much.  Recalling  Bannard's  dream  for  the  city,  she 
would  demand  the  full  details  of  how  it  was  to  be  worked 
out.  Hospitals,  settlements,  public  schools — she  was 
eager  to  learn  of  them  all — parts  of  a  world  in  which  she 
was  sure  that  Steve  would  play  a  tremendous  role.  But 
her  sense  of  humor  and  his  own  would  soon  come  to  the 
rescue;  and  dropping  all  thought  of  science  or  the  salva 
tion  of  mankind,  they  would  go  off  on  radiant  sprees. 

They  came  out  often  to  Seven  Pines  to  talk  it  over 
with  our  aunt.  But  here  Steve's  silent  father  was  some 
times  a  disturbing  note;  for  although  he  said  nothing 
openly,  it  was  plain  that  he  saw  complications  ahead. 
From  him  and  his  forefathers,  figures  reaching  back  into 
the  hard  and  bleak  and  rugged  beginnings  of  New  Eng 
land,  Steve  had  inherited  a  contempt  for  any  fellow  weak 
enough  to  become  a  rich  girl's  husband.  Newspaper 
stories  had  already  appeared  about  the  engagement,  and 
it  got  on  his  nerves  at  times.  In  New  York  he  could  meet 


BLIND  99 

it  by  hard  work  and  the  determination  to  make  such  a 
thundering  success  that  all  thought  of  money  would  go 
by  the  board.  But  here  in  the  country  with  his  father  he 
was  not  so  confident.  They  had  trouble,  too,  as  to  his 
religion;  for  before  old  Mr.  McCrea  would  consent  to 
marry  them,  he  had  to  be  shown  that  his  son  had  retained 
enough  of  his  faith  to  justify  the  church  in  sanctioning 
the  union.  And  this  was  not  easy.  It  took  all  Aunt 
Amelia's  powers  of  persuasion.  Finally  it  was  arranged. 


4. 

As  the  wedding  day  drew  near,  this  old  house  at  Seven 
Pines  took  on  a  thrilled  expectant  air.  For  Aunt  Amelia, 
a  bit  blue  because  all  of  us  but  Dorothy  were  now  grown 
up  with  lives  of  our  own,  had  set  herself  determinedly  to 
make  us  feel  that  this  was  the  one  spot  on  earth  where 
each  of  us  would  want  to  come  back  with  our  joys  or  our 
troubles.  This  was  home.  Rapidly  it  began  to  fill  with 
bridesmaids,  friends  and  relatives.  Gifts  were  arriving. 
Plans  were  made.  The  house  was  a  perfect  hubbub  now, 
fairly  bursting  with  guests.  Dorothy  was  in  a  state  of 
bliss  quite  impossible  to  describe.  Outdoors  and  within, 
by  day  and  by  night,  the  great  exciting  time  went  on. 
Even  the  homely  little  church  had  been  given  a  bright 
festive  air. 

On  the  wedding  day,  as  Steve's  best  man,  I  reached 
the  church  before  anyone,  else,  except  his  father  and  him 
self.  Both  of  them  were  on  their  knees.  With  his  hand 
on  the  shoulder  of  his  son,  the  old  preacher's  face  was 
turned  upward,  his  eyes  were  closed  and  the  voice  of  his 
prayer  so  husky  and  low  I  could  not  hear. 

Of  the  wedding  service  I  have  no  clear  recollection. 
It  is  but  a  blur  in  my  memory. 

"To  love  and  to  cherish,  till  death  us  do  part."  I 
remember  the  hushed  expectancy  in  the  church  on  that 
lovely  summer's  day.  It  was  as  though  for  the  moment 


100  BLIND 

brought  under  the  spell  of  those  marriage  vows  to  be 
binding  on  the  years  ahead,  our  senses,  too,  though  we 
knew  it  not,  were  turned  toward  the  future.  How  deeply 
shocked  we  would  have  been  had  we  been  told  of  the 
great  winds  which  with  the  roar  of  a  tempest  world-wide 
were  to  beat  upon  all  churches,  homes  and  courts  of  law, 
banks  and  seats  of  government,  and  challenge  each  to 
show  good  reason  why  it  should  not  be  struck  down, 
swept  into  the  raging  flood  and  left  to  founder  in  the 
past.  "For  richer,  for  poorer."  In  those  days  there  was 
such  wealth  on  the  one  hand,  such  poverty  on  the  other, 
that  the  hope  of  winning  the  one  and  of  escaping  the 
other  crept  up  to  the  very  altar  like  a  god  invisible.  But 
with  the  children's  children  of  those  unions  how  will  it 
be?  Life  is  simplified  for  a  man  who  is  blind.  For  me  at 
least  the  war  overseas,  abruptly  as  a  thunderbolt,  has  cut 
off  the  past  from  the  future.  I  am  between,  and  I  am 
in  the  dark.  I  look  ahead,  and  it  seems  to  me  that  even 
now  there  begins  to  appear  in  mighty  outlines,  vague  and 
dim,  the  world  of  these  children  and  their  sons.  Great 
wealth  and  poverty  are  not  there.  What  then  ?  A  perfect 
brotherhood?  Liberty,  Equality,  Fraternity,  all  in  mel 
low  glow?  Far  from  it.  Rather  the  hard  clear  light  of 
early  dawn,  and  climbers  up  a  mountain  side — builders, 
workers,  seekers,  dreamers — meeting  the  old  obstacles, 
Greed,  Envy,  Sloth  and  many  more — rocks  in  the  path 
to  the  perfect  day.  "For  better,  for  worse."  How  can  we 
be  sure  ?  But  it  is  the  dawn,  not  the  dark,  that  I  feel. 

"I  pronounce  you  man  and  wife." 

Abruptly  the  spell  was  broken,  and  soon  back  at  home 
to  the  music  of  a  little  orchestra  we  were  crowding* 
around  the  bride  and  groom — a  laughing,  chattering, 
joyous  mob.  Did  we  dance  later?  I  am  not  sure.  But 
when  Steve  and  Lucy  had  gone  upstairs,  I  remember  that 
I  led  the  singing — song  after  song — till  the  walls  and  the 
low  ceilings  rang.  Then  down  the  stairs  with  a  rush  they 


B  L  '/  tf  "p'       /'*  ;;-  101 

came.  Shouts,  rice  in  showers  and, old  shoes,  and  a  car 
riage  rolling  down  trfe  'hill,  Lucy's  4raa&  from  the  win 
dow  waving  goodbyes. 

In  the  twenty  years  that  have  gone  since  then,  there 
have  been  other  happenings  here — both  dark  and  bright. 
We  shall  come  to  them.  But  tonight  the  house  is  very 
still.  And  this  house  and  I  have  grown  to  be  such  inti 
mate  companions,  that  in  these  silent  times  it  seems  as 
though  we  were  dreaming  not  apart  but  together  into  the 
past  and  on  into  the  years  ahead,  in  which  there  will  be 
other  festivals,  matings,  births,  long  solemn  talks,  bright 
visions,  plans  and  resolutions.  Of  this  much  we  can  be 
sure.  For  the  rest,  the  light  is  still  too  dim.  But  though 
the  world  be  strange  and  new,  the  house  is  old.  So  is  the 
race.  Some  elements  will  never  change.  May  the  happi 
ness  be  deeper,  the  tragedies  more  wide  apart. 


CHAPTER   VI 

1. 

STEVE  AND  LUCY  asked  me  to  live  with  them.  I 
declined  but  was  there  continually,  for  not  only  was  I 
fond  of  them  both,  but  deeply  curious  as  well.  In  what 
happened  to  them  I  could  get  premonitions  of  what 
might  befall  my  precious  self  should  I  ever  take  the 
plunge.  It  was  an  engrossing  spectacle.  Single — married 
— presto — change!  In  a  twinkling  Steve's  personal  life 
was  seized  and  bent  and  twisted,  complicated,  crowded 
up  in  the  most  delightful,  torturing  and  fascinating  man 
ner.  "And  they  lived  happy  ever  after."  Ha,  ha,  ha! 
The  laughter  of  the  ages  here!  For  happiness,  it  now 
appeared,  could  be  a  thing  of  fever,  shivers,  dazzling 
light  and  utter  darkness,  flare-ups  over  smallest  trifles, 
brooding  thoughts  and  fancies  hatching,  anxious  search 
ing,  sudden  finding,  celebrations,  hoping,  dreaming, 
babies  crying. 

The  queer  little  brown  house1 — two  floors  and  a  half, 
with  white  frames  to  its  long  narrow  windows,  quaint 
low  doorway  leading  in — was  fairly  quivering  with  new 
life.  Shocks,  large  and  small,  came  in  rapid  succession. 
A  shock  at  the  start  for  them  to  find  how  little  they 
really  knew  one  another.  Suddenly  they  were  intimate 
strangers  who  looked  at  each  other  with  startled  eyes. 
Steve  had  his  anxious  moments.  Of  what  they  were 
going  through  Lucy  had  known  little  or  nothing.  She 
was  what  is  called  a  well  bred  girl,  full  of  susceptibilities 
— some  to  be  expected,  others  to  bring  a  man  up  with  a 
jerk.  It  took  careful  steering.  But  luckily  Steve  had  in 
tuitions  far  from  common  in  our  sex.  He  took  her 

102 


BLIND  103 

through  without  disaster.  And  as  a  result,  instead  of  a 
somewhat  bruised  and  dulled  or  secretly  disillusioned 
young  wife,  he  had  a  radiant  creature.  She  had  never 
been  quite  beautiful,  but  now  she  came  into  her  own. 
Her  large  gray  eyes  had  a  shimmering  light  that  she 
would  turn  upon  old  Steve;  and  when  at  such  times 
the  whole  soul  of  him  grew  queerly  tense,  she  would 
laugh  or  smile,  talk  rapidly  and  move  about  doing  fool 
ish  things  or  making  him  do  them.  All  the  furniture  in 
the  place  was  tried  here  and  there  and  then  again  here — 
while  I  helped,  advised  and  criticized,  or  stirred  the 
Rarebit  for  our  feast  and  meditated  on  married  life. 

So  far,  so  good.  But  now  they  went  exploring  deep, 
each  one  into  the  love  of  the  other.  Neither  had  any 
patience  with  shams  or  concealments.  The  veils  were 
down.  All  thoughts  and  feelings,  points  of  view,  not  in 
order  but  haphazard,  were  eagerly  turned  inside  out. 
There  were  arguments  growing  decidedly  heated,  quar 
rels  comic,  quarrels  grim.  He  was  working  hard  and  she 
urged  him  on;  but  there  came  sudden  jealous  moods. 
'That  detestable  Bannard!"  she  would  cry.  "Can't  he 
give  us  a  moment  of  our  own?"  After  the  flare-ups  or 
spells  of  gloom  came  reconciliations  so  dazzling  that  I 
felt  in  the  way ;  and  forth  I  went  into  the  world,  a  lonely, 
wistful,  lorn  young  man.  But  again  there  were  drops  to 
the  commonplace,  when  they  had  little  to  say  to  each 
other.  And  I  was  a  welcome  figure  then,  for  my  young 
sister  was  resolved  that  marriage  should  not  narrow 
them.  She  wanted  all  the  very  latest  gossip  from  News 
paper  Row;  and  she  loved  to  sit  up  half  the  night  plan 
ning  what  we  meant  to  do  in  the  years  so  brightly  open 
ing.  In  mind  and  fancy,  in  those  days,  I  had  exuberance 
enough;  but  in  our  ardent  long  discussions  it  added  an 
agreeable  zest  to  feel  about  me  the  love  of  these  two.  It 
was  always  there  just  under  the  surface,  so  intense,  so 
warm  and  deep,  so  human  in  its  weaknesses,  its  grop- 


104  BLIND 

ings  and  its  twists  and  turns,  its  way  of  suddenly  bursting 
up,  rending,  tearing,  quickly  healing,  deepening  and 
reaching  out — an  uncanny  and  mysterious  force  in  these 
people  I  had  known  so  well. 

I  saw  more  of  Lucy  than  of  Steve.  Often  I  found  her 
alone  in  the  evenings,  and  this  delightful  sister  of  mine 
attracted  me  enormously.  With  her  small  house  she  had 
fallen  in  love.  As  a  writer  will  carry  a  story  about  with 
him  in  the  back  of  his  mind,  so  did  Lucy  with  her  home ; 
and  out  of  her  consciousness  she  evolved  a  constant 
stream  of  new  ideas,  until  under  her  touch  the  little  place 
assumed  a  warm  living  personal  charm.  The  daily  rou 
tine  of  its  life  had  been  arranged  to  run  smoothly  now. 
That  is,  it  should  have.  It  did  not.  Like  some  mysterious 
engine,  it  would  at  times  "kick  back"  or  "stall."  But 
these  accidents,  in  Lucy's  mood,  were  only  things  to 
laugh  at.  So  were  the  struggles  month  by  month  firmly 
to  keep  expenses  down.  Each  morning  she  went  with  a 
basket  to  a  large  market  not  far  off,  where  a  squeaky 
little  orchestra  of  musicians  from  the  street  gave  music 
to  the  marketing;  and  going  about  to  the  various  booths 
she  handled  with  an  authoritative  manner  meat  and  fish 
and  vegetables,  and  chatted  with  the  people  who  sold 
them.  Many  she  vowed  to  be  "characters."  I  wrote  them 
up,  they  read  my  sketches,  and  the  popularity  of  my  sis 
ter  was  increased — for  I  painted  them  all  in  high  col 
ors,  just  as  we  saw  them  in  those  days,  a  thoroughly 
human,  likable  lot. 

On  the  edge  of  the  tenement  quarter  just  below 
her  neighborhood,  she  discovered  a  small  Italian  church, 
and  took  me  there  on  a  festival  night  when  the  little  place 
was  all  aglow  with  tinsel  and  soft  candle  light.  A  Sicil 
ian  wine  shop  was  close  by,  with  huge  foreign  looking 
casks  of  wine — from  California;  and  upstairs  was  a  pup 
pet  show — or  "marionettes,"  as  they  were  called.  The 
white-headed  old  showman  became  our  friend  and  let  us 


BLIND  105 

in  behind  the  scenes.  Back  of  one  wittg  we  stood  with 
him.  Close  .above,  from  a  dark  little  loft,  two  gorgeous 
youths  stripped  to  the  waists  would  glare  at  one  another 
as  with  wires  they  worked  the  heads  and  limbs,  the 
swords  and  shields  of  the  doughty  warriors  fighting1 
below.  Kings  and  queens,  knights,  lovely  maids — the 
old  showman  himself  had  made  them  all.  Standing 
beside  us,  his  big  black  eyes  fixed  upon  their  antics,  in  a 
voice  oi  deep  resonance  he  would  roll  off  the  rhythmic 
lines.  The  play  was  hundreds  of  acts  in  length,  it  took 
three  months  to  play  it  through — and  yet  for  the  male 
characters  he  knew  all  the  lines  by  heart,  and  would  sing 
them  off  sonorously;  while  over  in  the  other  wing  his 
stout  old  wife,  who  seemed  to  be  drowsing  over  a  large 
and  ancient  book,  would  somehow  always  waken  in  time 
to  read  each  fine  lady's  part.  And  across  the  crude  gas 
footlights,  peering  into  the  darkness  there,  we  could  see 
lines  of  swarthy  faces,  hungry  fascinated  eyes. 

Romance,  glamour,  mystery.  To  one  who  has  the  eyes 
to  see,  the  turgid  city  of  New  York  becomes  a  glamor 
ous  treasure  house.  Greeks,  Turks,  Armenians  are  there 
— and  an  Arabic  daily  paper !  Spaniards,  South  Ameri 
cans,  Hungarians,  Bohemians,  Chinamen,  Hindoos,  Rus 
sians  and  Jews  from  all  over  the  face  of  the  globe.  And 
they  have  their  newspapers  and  cafes,  shops  piled  up  with 
curios,  churches,  temples,  synagogues,  mosques.  There 
are  whispering  magicians  there — secret  rages,  endless 
crimes,  unspeakable  vices — dances,  songs — there  are 
theatres — weddings — babies  born.  And  a  kind  of  a  roar 
sweeps  over  it  all. 

And  in  those  days  it  seemed  as  though  all  that  touched 
on  my  sister's  life  revealed  a  romance  of  its  own.  Even 
the  furnace  did  its  part.  Now  a  furnace  is  not  a  roman 
tic  thing.  Yet  the  furnace  man  I  found  for  her  was  a  tall 
Russian  with  close-shaved  head  who  wore  an  old  gray 
belted  blouse  with  a  flower  embroidered  on  each  shoul- 


106  BLIND 

der.  A  village  school  teacher  over  there,  he  had  left  home 
and  started  out  upon  a  world-wide  pilgrimage  to  gather 
the  teachers  of  the  earth  into  one  great  brotherhood.  His 
name  was  Oberookoff.  He  barely  spoke  English  and 
knew  still  less  about  furnace  drafts.  He  had  terrible 
times — he  had  marvelous  dreams.  One  morning  when 
the  house  was  freezing,  Steve  found  him  sprawled  on  the 
cellar  floor  trying  to  read  by  candle  light  the  paper  with 
which  an  hour  before  he  had  come  down  to  start  the  fire. 
...  I  saw  much  of  him  later  on. 

It  was  a  cheerful  neighborhood,  with  little  wretched 
ness  to  be  seen.  On  balmy  evenings  groups  of  boys  and 
girls  would  come  by  singing.  Among  the  low  old-fash 
ioned  dwellings  several  big  tenement  buildings  had 
already  been  put  up.  One  of  them  reared  its  shadowy 
bulk  just  behind  Lucy's  little  house;  and  from  her  bed 
room  window  she  could  hear  voices  drop  out  of  the  dark 
— angry,  peevish,  laughing,  low ;  they  seemed  to  go  on  all 
through  the  night,  in  a  babel  of  many  tongues.  Across 
her  backyard  was  a  low  brick  house — an  affair  as  dull  as 
the  furnace,  it  seemed.  Yet  a  notorious  "fence"  was 
there.  A  "fence,"  ladies  and  gentlemen,  is  a  man  who 
trades  in  stolen  goods.  When  Lucy  learned  this  she  was 
filled  with  disgust;  for  a  whole  barrel  of  wedding  gifts 
that  she  detested,  yet  must  keep,  because  the  donors  at 
any  moment  might  come  spying  about  the  house,  had 
been  left  on  the  back  porch  one  night.  Why  couldn't  her 
neighbor  have  helped  her  out  ? 

Steve's  doctor's  sign  was  in  the  window.  Occasion 
ally  a  possible  patient  would  come  up  and  ring  the  bell. 
And  at  such  times,  if  Steve  were  out  his  wife  would 
receive  the  visitor,  cordial,  friendly,  sympathetic,  and 
would  beg  him  to  call  again. 

Both  Steve  and  I  brought  our  friends  to  the  house. 
With  a  few  exceptions  they  belonged  to  the  world  old 
Bannard  had  described;  and  while  they  did  not  quite 


BLIND  107 

come  up  to  the  picture  he  had  painted,  they  were  inter 
esting  nevertheless.  For  the  age  of  my  youth  was  an  era 
when  hundreds  of  young  Americans,  like  the  youth  in 
far  away  Russia,  began  a  movement  "to  the  people." 
Some  of  them  lived  in  "settlements;"  others  took  tene 
ments  of  their  own.  Of  the  Russian  Intelligenzia  I 
learned  a  good  deal  later  on — so  much  that  I  would  have 
been  astounded  had  I  been  told  what  I  should  see.  But 
the  movement  here  was  different.  Little  or  nothing  very 
wild  or  world-embracing  in  its  scope.  Not  revolution  but 
reform.  A  practical,  hardworking  lot,  though  you  would 
not  have  guessed  it  to  hear  them  talk.  Bernard  Shaw  was 
then  the  rage,  and  they  would  talk  Shaw  by  the  hour  at 
night.  To  listen,  you  might  have  fancied  that  each  and 
every  one  of  them  had  nothing  but  scorn  for  small  re 
forms.  What  a  absurdly  rotten  old  world !  Get  a  grip 
on  the  roots  of  it,  jerk  and  heave,  and  bring  it  down  with 
a  glorious  crash !  But  the  next  morning  back  they  would 
go  to  the  steady  jobs  which  their  practical  souls  loved 
above  all  things  else  on  earth. 

So  the  country  began  to  be  saved  in  those  days.  From 
those  few  hundred  pioneers  have  sprung  thousands  of 
wild  young  things  to  whose  godlike  spirits  the  world  is  a 
ball  spinning  'round  so  fast  that  only  the  boldest  thoughts 
and  acts  can  be  seen  or  heard  in  the  seething  whirl. 
Meanwhile,  as  in  the  age  of  my  youth,  from  far  beneath' 
them  can  be  felt  a  prodigious  heave  and  quiver,  as  from 
a  mass  of  humanity  dull  and  common  as  the  earth,  and  as 
unlikely  to  burst  up.  And  yet  earthquakes  are  not 
unknown. 

But  if  we  had  any  such  thoughts,  they  only  added  zest 
to  our  talk.  And  Lucy,  keenly  interested,  was  a  delightful 
hostess.  Aunt  Amelia  often  came  in  from  the  country  to 
spend  the  night,  and  she  warmly  approved  of  everything 
— of  the  house,  the  change  in  Lucy,  her  new  life  and  her 
new  friends.  It  was  fine  to  see  young  people  working  for 


108  BLIND 

the  good  of  the  country  in  such  useful  practical  ways. 
Sometimes  she  brought  Dorothy,  too,  who  was  soon  to 
go  to  college  and  was  thrilled  at  meeting  here  such 
entrancing  persons  as  magazine  writers  and  suffragettes, 
and  above  all  women  who  earned  their  own  living. 

"That's  what  I  mean  to  do!"  she  declared.  She  was 
working  hard  at  her  piano  and  had  dreams  of  a  career. 

But  more  often  her  mother  came  alone;  and  because1 
our  aunt  was  interested  far  less  in  jobs  than  in  people 
themselves — whom  she  loved  to  study  until  she  knew 
them,  not  as  they  would  like  to  appear  but  as  they  really 
were  underneath — having  approved,  she  set  herself  to 
watch  them  with  a  keen  delight,  their  vanities  and  weak 
nesses,  quirks  and  twists  of  every  kind.  And  when  they 
had  gone  she  and  Lucy  would  talk  them  over  for  hours. 
Lucy  had  so  much  to  tell  her  aunt.  She  was  changing 
much  more  deeply  now.  There  came  long  times  when  she 
kept  to  herself.  As  the  spring  drew  rapidly  on,  there 
were  fewer  visitors  at  the  house.  Aunt  Amelia  came 
more  and  more.  She  was  there  when  Lucy's  son  was 
born. 

Abruptly  then  the  atmosphere  changed.  Dad  and 
Aunt  Fanny  came  to  the  house,  and  many  of  Lucy's  old 
girl  friends.  Some  were  already  wives  and  mothers. 
Small  dainty  garments  and  other  gifts  poured  in  from 
uptown.  It  was  as  though  the  old  life  of  my  sister  were 
reaching  out  for  her  once  more. 

As  soon  as  she  was  strong  enough,  she  came  out  with 
her  baby  to  Seven  Pines. 


2. 

She  spent  a  long  quiet  summer  here,  and  under  the 
leisurely  routine  her  sense  of  pronortions  began  to 
chan.ee.  She  was  ill  for  a  time  and  that  colored  her 
thinking,  made  her  crave  familiar  things.  In  rambling 
talks  with  Aunt  Amelia — to  whom  the  word  "family" 


BLIND  .  109 

meant  so  much;  and  to  whom,  for  all  her  love  of  new 
things,  it  was  "such  a  mistake"  to  drop  the  old — Lucy's 
formless  cravings  began  to  assume  a  definite  form.  She 
was  deeply  pleased  by  the  fact  that  Dad,  when  he  came 
to  his  mills  nearby,  would  almost  invariably  motor  over 
to  see  his  little  grandson.  Her  love  for  him  came  back 
tenfold.  The  boy  made  such  a  difference.  The  winter 
before,  in  Lucy's  home,  our  father  and  Aunt  Fanny  had 
been  almost  wholly  ignored;  but  when  she  returned  to 
town  in  October,  Lucy  was  anxious  to  have  him  come, 
especially  without  his  wife.  And  out  of  this  anxiety  there 
gradually  developed  a  complicated  tangle,  a  fast  deepen 
ing  conflict.  It  was  the  old,  old  struggle  between  two 
women  for  a  man — but  it  had  a  queer  new  twist  to  it. 
Aunt  Fanny  wanted  a  husband;  Lucy,  a  grandfather  for 
her  boy. 

Aunt  Fanny,  still  in  her  early  thirties,  had  now  decided 
apparently  that  three  children  were  enough,  and  was 
making  preparations  for  an  exceedingly  gorgeous  career. 
She  was  prettier  than  ever  before,  and  if  anything  more 
smartly  dressed.  It  was  a  constant  marvel  to  me  to  see 
what  satin,  silk  and  velvet  and — oh  damn  it,  just  plain 
cloth! — could  do  to  a  woman.  One  night  I  humbly 
begged  her  to  give  me  some  small  inkling  of  the  mys 
teries  of  it  all.  And  after  stating  emphatically  that  most 
men  writers  made  a  perfectly  ludicrous  failure  of  dress 
ing  the  women  in  their  books,  gracious  she  took  me 
upstairs  and  showed  me  large  closets  filled  with  gowns, 
and  one  with  hats  and  another  with  slippers,  shimmering 
upon  long  shelves  and  twinkling  mischievously  down. 
She  talked  of  clothes.  She  opened  a  safe  and  gave  a  little 
lecture  on  jewels.  To  be  "over-dressed"  was  the  thing 
she  abhorred.  A  quiet  expensive  English  maid  looked  ori 
discreetly,  smiling,  and  added  a  little  sage  advice.  In 
brief,  my  young  mother  did  her  best  to  help  me  on  in  my 
writer's  career — and  as  usual  flirted  with  me  a  bit. 


110  BLIND 

As  for  Dad,  she  could  twist  him  around  her  finger.  In 
his  tense  busy  crowded  life,  his  wife  was  a  tonic,  a 
draught  of  wine.  Though  fifty  now,  he  was  still  young 
— still  one  of  "the  big  new  men"  downtown.  His  imag 
ination,  vital  force  and  will  were  turned  on  vistas  ex 
tending  out  all  over  the  land,  and  he  was  making  money 
so  fast  it  was  all  Aunt  Fanny  could  do  to  keep  up.  But 
she  did  pretty  well.  Already  she  had  coaxed  him  out  of 
his  plan  for  a  house  on  the  Sound;  they  were  building  at 
Newport  instead.  And  here  in  town  she  entertained  more 
lavishly  than  ever  before.  Her  dinners,  dances,  musi- 
cales  were,  like  her  clothes,  expensively  simple,  in  the 
very  best  of  taste.  It  is  true  that  among  her  guests  were 
men  who  only  a  little  before  had  been  running  factories, 
mills  and  mines  in  distant  parts  of  the  country.  But  they 
had  become  New  Yorkers  now.  Their  wives  had  taken 
them  firmly  in  hand  and  had  polished  rough,  rough  dia 
monds  into-  such  nicely  finished  gems  that  nothing 
remained  of  the  past  but  a  smile — with  a  hard  shrewd 
wisdom  underneath.  There  were  distinguished  foreign 
ers  come  overseas  in  quest  of  graft,  who  met  such  men 
in  homes  like  these  and  sized  them  up  as  easy  marks; 
then  met  them  in  their  offices — and  emerged  with  scared 
faces  like  bad  little  boys. 

Under  Aunt  Fanny's  skillful  hand  my  father,  too,  had 
taken  on  a  decidedly  polished  air.  He  grew  younger  and 
younger.  He  learned  to  dance!  And  to  Lucy  this 
dancing  was  the  last  straw.  Disgusting  and  ridiculous! 
The  way  that  creature  twisted  him !  The  waste  of  money, 
the  useless  waste,  the  utterly  empty  senseless  life — for  a 
grandfather!  There  was  the  rub.  She  wanted  Dad  not 
young  but  old — plain,  simple,  kindly,  old  fashioned  in 
dress.  "At  his  age"  she  was  constantly  saying.  At  his 
age  he  should  have  what  he  really  craved,  a  home  like 
Aunt  Amelia's.  At  his  age  he  should  be  thinking  not 
•only  of  gathering  money  in  but  of  spending  it  for  the 


BLIND  111 

common  good— to  feed  the  hungry,  clothe  the  naked, 
heal  the  sick — in  short,  back  Steve.  What  perfectly  daz 
zling  chances  to  make  the  whole  world  happy,  these  days 
— and  what  a  perfectly  wicked  shame  that  money  which 
should  have  been  spent  on  such  work  was  merely  "thrown 
about  like  air." 

Dad  met  this  point  by  good-naturedly  contributing  to 
everything  for  which  Lucy  asked  his  aid.  But  the  out 
rageous  part  of  it  was  that  he  was  making  money  so  fast 
he  could  meet  both  his  wife's  and  his  daughter's  demands. 
He  went  farther — he  even  offered  to  build  a  hospital  for 
Steve.  But  here  the  complications  grew.  For  Steve 
declined  the  offer;  and  when  Lucy  asked  me  to  talk  with 
him,  it  was  revealed  that  Steve  still  felt  his  silent  old 
father's  contempt  for  his  position  as  a  rich  girl's  hus 
band.  He  was  resolved  more  than  ever  before  to  keep 
free  of  his  father-in-law. 

"Look  here,  Larry,"  he  said,  "I  love  my  wife  and  I 
want  to  take  this — but  I  can't.  If  I  choose  this  very  easy 
way  and  go  up  as  the  son-in-law  of  your  father,  it  would 
take  all  the  ginger  out  of  me — I  am  like  that.  She  would 
feel  it  soon — it  would  half  spoil  our  lives.  And  why 
should  I  ?  I  don't  need  to !  I've  got  chances  enough  as  it 
is!  So  many,  it's  bewildering!  And  if  Lucy  will  only 
wait  awhile — God  knows  we're  happy  enough  even  now 
— or  were,  till  she  got  this  fool  idea.  I  don't  understand 
it!" 

"It's  the  boy." 

"The  boy,"  Steve  answered  doggedly,  "is  to  be  my  son 
— and  not  the  grandson  of  Carrington  Hart!" 

The  effect  of  this  on  Steve  was  to  make  him  work  the 
harder,  and  to  feel  a  bitter  impatience  at  times  over  the 
fact  that  Bannard,  his  chief,  in  order  to  put  through  his 
plans  must  forever  "toady"  to  men  of  wealth.  This  feel 
ing  in  Steve  did  not  last,  but  while  it  did  it  was  intense. 
He  had  a  big  generous  streak  in  him ;  and  grumble  as  he 


112  BLIND 

often  did  against  the  obstinate  ignorance  of  people  in  the 
tenements,  he  paid  many  free  visits  to  tenement 
homes,  in  the  meantime  working  hard  on  various  com 
mittees.  He  so  devotedly  threw  himself  into  the  hard 
slow  realization  of  Bannard's  big  dreams,  that  even  when 
he  refused  to  attempt  to  get  large  subscriptions  out  of 
Dad,  his  chief  could  not  find  fault  with  him.  Old  Ban- 
nard  begged  the  money  and  Steve  slaved  to  make  it 
count.  Through  the  dark  tides  of  people  in  the  evening 
hours  surging  through  the  tenement  streets,  he  moved 
with  a  grim  deep  satisfaction. 

"An  honest-to-God  job,"  he  called  it.  "And  if  we  had 
a  real  government  instead  of  a  lot  of  bum  politicians, 
chaps  like  me  would  be  salaried  so  that  we  could  give  all 
our  time  to  such  work — without  begging  help  from  the 
millionaires." 

As  it  was,  he  had  his  own  living  to  earn,  and  as  Ban 
nard's  assistant  he  was  constantly  paying  visits  to  people 
uptown.  He  was  soon  in  great  demand — especially 
among  the  women — to  his  annoyance  and  chagrin.  I 
remember  one  night  when  he  came  home  looking  like  a 
thundercloud;  and  after  much  questioning  I  learned  that 
a  certain  dazzling  songstress,  who  was  cheering  the  older 
years  of  one  of  Bannard's  patients,  had  suddenly 
required  an  operation  which  Steve  performed — but  her 
nerves  were  still  in  such  a  state  that  she  had  somehow 
inveigled  him  into  standing  behind  a  wing  at  Weber  and 
Fields'  music  hall  while  she  went  on  to  do  her  turn.  "I'm 
strong  while  you  are  here!"  she  had  whispered.  Con 
found  the  little  idiot,  he  would  never  go  to  her  again! 
But  in  spite  of  his  growls  his  practice  grew. 

"Any  amount  of  these  women,"  he  said,  "are  human 
enough  when  they  get  the  chance.  But  most  of  them 
don't  need  me.  If  they  would  only  quit  milking  men 
and  go  to  milking  cows  instead,  half  their  ills  would  soon 
be  cured,  and  fellows  like  me  would  have  the  time  for  the 


BLIND  113 

real  jobs  waiting  all  over  town.  .  .  .  But  I  need  the 

money,"  he  ended. 

At  home  the  bills  were  piling  up.  It  was  astounding, 
the  extra  expense  involved  in  rearing  Tommy,  their  boy. 
When  Steve  increased  the  monthly  allowance,  Lucy 
quickly  discovered  more  things  that  were  essential.  As 
a  rule,  she  could  keep  such  items  from  coming  to  his 
attention;  and  when  he  did  take  notice  and  angrily  pro 
tested,  in  the  same  tone  she  would  rejoin  that  so  long  as 
she  had  her  own  money  she  could  see  no  earthly  reason 
for  not  spending  it  on  her  own  child.  For  the  old  com 
plication  was  there.  How  could  she  help  noticing  all  that 
Aunt  Fanny's  children  had?  They  had  two  really  able 
nurses — not  mere  ignorant  chits  of  girls — and  a  gov 
erness,  a  coachman  and  a  small  coupe  painted  orange  and 
blue.  There  were  special  teachers  for  Louise,  and  there 
were  such  adorable  clothes,  and  dolls  and  countless  toys 
and  games  in  that  love  of  a  nursery.  They  had  the  best 
of  everything!  While  as  for  Tommy,  the  poor  little 
lamb,  cooped  up  in  this  small  box  downtown,  with  no 
friends,  no  playground,  teachers — oh !  With  a  swift  com 
pression  of  her  lips,  his  mother  would  then  sally  forth 
and  buy  something  for  him. 

She  started  a  process  that  she  descried  as  "getting 
things  in  proportion  again."  This  involved  lunches, 
shopping  sprees,  and  the  going  to  concerts  and  to  plays, 
with  various  former  friends  of  hers.  She  began  to 
require  "clothes  fit  to  be  seen  in" — both  on  the  street  and 
at  home  in  the  evenings.  For  now  a  few  choice  spirits 
were  asked  with  their  husbands  down  to  dine.  And 
snarl  and  grumble  though  he  would,  Steve  had  to  "doll 
himself  up"  on  such  nights. 

"What  I  want  and  what  I  mean  to  have,"  she  con 
fided  to  me,  "is  friends  of  all  kinds,  to  broaden  us  out. 
I'm  not  going  to  let  him  get  into  a  rut — I  don't  care  how 
big  a  rut  it  is !"  And  she  went  on  to  say  ominous  things 


114  BLIND 

about  getting  sooner  or  later  "a  background  for  my  chil 
dren."  Now  a  background  may  be  anything,  but  it 
sounded  large  to  me  that  night. 

For  the  present,  however,  she  was  content  to  live  as 
they  were — with  the  slight  changes  already  described. 
And  though  there  were  still,  between  them,  frequent 
flares  and  discords,  the  reconciliations  were  quite  as 
happy  as  before.  Steve  and  I  still  brought  our  friends. 
There  was  no  discouragement,  no  gloom.  There  was 
impatience,  pettiness,  and  jealousy,  but  beneath  it  all  was 
the  sense  of  growth,  expectancy,  the  feeling  of  deep, 
boundless  youth. 

There  was  the  added  joy  in  the  child.  Young  Tommy 
had  now  grown  to  be  a  rather  enormous  urchin.  At  the 
age  of  five  he  required  the  clothes  of  a  boy  of  seven.  His 
voice  was  almost  deep  as  mine,  and  his  large  brown 
reflective  eyes  would  meet  my  own  and  suddenly  gleam 
with  the  secrets  shared  between  us.  In  the  summer  up 
at  Seven  Pines  I  had,  with  a  dark  mystery  conveyed 
by  winks  and  warning  gestures,  guided  him  to  the  secret 
places  I  had  known  there  as  a  boy — and  many  I  had 
never  known;  and  he  had  shown  me  some  of  his  own, 
including  a  great  rose  bush  where  he  had  seen  fairy  lan 
terns  one  night.  In  New  York  our  most  wonderful  secret 
place  was  at  the  circus,  where  through  a  press  agent  I 
knew  we  had  been  able  to  penetrate  far  back  into  those 
regions  where  clowns  and  acrobats,  giants,  dwarfs  and 
elephants  dress  for  the  ring.  A  weasened  little  old  cow 
boy  there  had  winked  at  Tommy  and  whistled  in  a  most 
peculiar  way.  This  whistle  we  had  learned  with  care, 
and  it  became  our  very  own.  We  developed  it  into  a  sys 
tem  of  signals.  Often  when  I  came  to  the  house  after 
Tommy  had  gone  to  bed,  I  would  sneak  out  in  the  back 
yard  and  whistle;  and  from  his  room  in  reply  would 
come  two  short  whistles  that  announced,  "It's  no  use. 
Annie  is  in  the  next  room" — or  else  a  long  one  and  a 


BLIND  11& 

short,  which  meant,  "She's  not  here!  Come  on  up  with 
the  stuff!"  By  "the  stuff"  we  meant  invariably  two  enor 
mous  gumdrops,  which  we  devoured  in  the  dark.  While 
I  sat  on  his  bed  he  would  at  moments  grasp  my  hand  and 
squeeze  it  hard. 

And  there  were  times  when  I  envied  Steve  and  vaguely 
resolved  to  get  me  a  wife. 


CHAPTER  VII 

1. 

BUT  this  proved  to  be  no  simple  affair.  Not  from  any 
lack  of  girls,  for  in  the  great  city  of  New  York  were  per 
fect  swarms  of  eager  maids  who  would  have  tripped 
themselves  up  in  their  haste  to  get  to  the  altar  by  my 
side.  At  least  so  I  liked  to  remark  to  my  sister — for  it 
always  got  a  rise.  When  she  tried  to  wither  my  conceit, 
I  would  patiently  cite  to  her  case  after  case  in  my  own 
life  and  those  of  my  friends.  No  credit  to  us,  I  argued, 
we  were  all  mere  average  men ;  but  even  an  average  man, 
it  seemed,  was  so  devilish  attractive  to  girls  that — well, 
just  to  give  one  example  of  many,  once  on  a  lovely  sum 
mer's  night  I  had  had  to  jump  out  of  a  buggy  and  run. 
And  if  Lucy  had  not  stopped  my  story  with  an  unbeliev 
ing  snort,  I  might  have  told  her  a  lot  o>f  things.  The  only 
point  that  worried  me  was  the  danger  to  my  precious 
self.  I  was  a  mighty  happy  young  man.  I  had  already 
begun  to  write  plays;  and  for  a  future  dramatist  to  go 
and  tie  himself  up  ahead  to  a  wife,  a  home  and  babies, 
was  unimaginative  to  say  the  least.  So  I  remained  a 
bachelor.  I  still  lived  in  my  old  rooms  downtown;  it 
would  have  been  hard  to  give  them  up.  I  was  free  as  the 
winds.  There  were  week-end  visits  close  to  the  city  and 
journeys  far  out  to  the  West,  where  several  ranches  knew 
me  well;  and  there  was  a  wild  little  mining  town  out  in 
Colorado,  to  which  my  paper  had  sent  me  at  the  time  of 
a  big  strike. 

In  New  York  and  careering  about  the  land  I  was  get 
ting  large  sweeping  radical  views.  The  work  and  lives 
of  the  people  gathered  around  Lucy  and  Steve  had  lost 

116 


BLIND  117 

their  hold.  They  were  mere  reformers.  I  was  out  for 
larger  vistas,  bolder  thinking,  deeper  plans.  Rapidly  I 
made  my  way  into  the  radical  circles  among  the  foreign 
ers  in  New  York  who  proclaimed  the  Great  Revolution. 
I  delighted  in  bringing  such  people  like  bombs  into  my 
sister's  quiet  home  and  exploding  them  there  among  the 
reformers.  The  Russian  furnace  man  and  I  had  become 
the  best  of  friends.  I  took  him  out  to  supper  at  times. 
His  plan  for  a  world-wide  brotherhood  of  teachers  was 
a  big  idea.  And  the  fact,  as  pointed  out  by  Steve,  that 
the  only  thing  Oberookoff  had  done  toward  realizing  his 
great  dream  was  to  make  friends  with  the  German  jani 
tor  of  a  public  school  nearby,  only  drew  from  me  the 
retort  that  I  thanked  God  this  Russian  chap  was  not  as 
practical  as  ourselves.  We  Yankees  were  always  doing 
things !  Wait  a  minute !  Dream  a  few  dreams ! 

Through  him  I  met  a  heroic  old  woman  who  from  the 
time  when  she  was  a  girl  had  worked  for  the  freedom  of 
Russia.  Twenty-seven  years  she  had  spent  in  prisons  and 
Siberia.  She  was  to  me  then,  as  she  is  still,  one  of  the 
few  great  people  it  has  been  my  luck  to  know — and  one 
of  the  most  lovable.  When  I  'brought  her  to  Lucy's 
home,  she  plumped  down  on  the  floor  with  the  children 
and  played  with  them  to  her  heart's  content.  She  made 
such  a  hit  not  only  with  Lucy  but  even  with  Steve  and 
later  with  Dad,  that  the  latter  gave  her  a  large  contri 
bution — which  went,  as  I  learned  later  on,  into  assassin 
ation  expenses.  The  Grand  Duke  Sergius — killed  by  a 
bomb — at  Dad's  expense!  I  relished  the  thought. 

Later  I  interested  myself  in  a  troop  of  Russian  players 
who  gave  some  very  wonderful  performances  in  Rus 
sian  of  Ibsen,  Strindberg,  Tolstoy.  I  remember  vividly 
the  night  when  they  did  Gorky's  "Night  Lodging."  The 
sheer  grip  and  force  of  the  piece,  in  its  sombre  Rem 
brandt  setting,  left  me  breathless.  How  could  I  hope  to 
write  like  that  ?  They  let  me  in  at  rehearsals ;  and  watch- 


118  BLIND 

ing,  I  made  up  my  mind  to  learn  Russian  and  go  over 
there.  The  leading  man  of  the  company  became  a  kind 
of  god  of  mine.  I  remember  one  night  in  a  little  cafe 
down  in  the  heart  of  the  Ghetto,  this  Russian,  very  drunk 
at  the  time,  reciting  a  thing  by  Pushkin  describing  some 
hens  in  their  safe  little  yard  cackling  maliciously  up  at 
an  eagle  sailing  high  in  the  heavens  before  a  lowering 
storm.  But  the  eagle  from  on  high  answered  them  dis 
dainfully.  Let  hens  and  their  like  stick  to  their  yards. 
For  him  the  great  heavens,  the  storms  and  the  winds! 
The  chap  was  the  eagle  himself  that  night.  And  listening 
I  vowed  that  I  would  keep  out  of  the  hen  yards  of  this 
life. 

2. 

I  wrote  a  play,  a  labor  play,  and  rilled  it  with  a  seeth 
ing  concoction  of  my  new  ideas.  My  setting  was  the  Col 
orado  mining  town  where  I  had  been.  The  miners  were 
a  mixture  of  foreigners  and  native  born.  A  good  deal  has 
been  said  of  late  of  how  all  radical  doctrines  are  imported 
from  abroad — but  it  was  all  here  long  ago.  In  this  par 
ticular  mining  town  rebellion  was  a  home-made  brew. 
Instead  of  "the  hated  bourgeois''  and  "the  bloated  capi 
talist,"  they  used  the  term  "the  God-damned-boss;"  and 
in  place  of  the  Great  Revolution,  they  confined  their 
thoughts  to  strikes — but  these  were  often  such  affairs 
as  would  have  aroused  the  admiration  of  the  wildest 
Bolshevik,  while  the  methods  of  the  employers  would 
have  brought  an  approving  smile  from  any  chief  of  police 
of  the  Czar.  The  employers  bought  and  owned  the  legis 
lature,  judges,  courts,  the  sheriffs  and  militia.  The 
strikers  studied  the  fine  art  of  the  manufacture  and  hurl 
ing  of  bombs;  they  stored  up  rifles,  shotguns,  machine 
guns,  powder  and  plenty  of  lead — then  seized  locomotives 
and  rode  about,  spreading  rebellion  through  the  State. 
They  blew  things  up,  they  fought  pitched  battles,  held 


BLIND  119 

whole  towns  against  the  troops.  And  all  this  was 
directed  by  native  born  Americans. 

I  talked  with  one  leader,  Mat  Welles  by  name,  a  lean 
man  of  thirty,  rather  small,  with  a  slow  gentle  drawling 
voice.  One  of  his  uncles,  years  before,  had  died  in  a 
fight  on  the  Border,  and  another  had  been  sent  to  jail 
for  having  killed  five  hundred  sheep.  Being  a  cattle  man 
himself,  he  had  looked  upon  the  invading  sheep  as  so 
many  Bolsheviki;  and  so  he  had  deported  them  over  a 
cliff  on  a  pitch  dark  night,  and  had  then  sat  down  and  lit 
his  pipe  and  listened  to  the  noise  below.  The  nephew 
knew  little  and  cared  less  for  Karl  Marx  or  Bakunin, 
but  he  took  a  keg  of  T.  N.  T.  and  an  old  clock  and  a  slow 
fuse  and  made  a  kind  of  little  toy  boat,  which  he  put 
into  a  water  sluice  far  up  on  a  rocky  mountain  side.  This 
sluice,  which  was  covered,  led  two  thousand  yards  down 
into  the  stockaded  plant  of  a  mine  owner  known  as 
"Zink-Eye  Brown."  And  Mat,  like  his  uncle,  lit  his  pipe 
and  listened  to  the  noise  below.  He  had  also  invented 
a  fluid  which  was  called  "Greek  fire."  You  sprinkled  a 
few  drops  on  a  "scab,"  then  crossed  the  street  and 
watched  him  burn. 

In  brief,  there  was  material  here  for  a  play  with  a 
good  deal  of  action.  But  like  most  beginners  I  filled  it 
with  talk.  The  radical  views  of  these  low-voiced  Reds, 
couched  in  vivid  and  picturesque  phrase,  were  irresistible 
to  my  pen.  And  then,  because  the  mine  owner  was  a 
distant  cousin  of  ours,  I  crowded  in  his  views  as  well. 
His  mine  was  no  worse  than  the  others — in  fact,  rather 
better — for  he  had  employed  a  German  chemical  engineer 
thoroughly  to  examine  it  and  recommend  means  o*f  fight 
ing  certain  poisonous  gases  there.  This  engineer,  whose 
name  was  Sonfeldt,  had  already  spent  several  years  in 
American  mills  and  mines.  He  was  still  a  good  deal  of 
a  youngster,  a  decent  sort  with  friendly  eyes,  though 
rather  precise  and  pompous  at  times  and  blind  to  any 


120  BLIND 

idea  but  his  own.  His  own  idea,  which  had  already  put 
tense  lines  in  his  thin  dark  sensitive  face,  was  to  the 
effect  that  for  a  nation  rich  as  ours  to  allow  its  mines  and 
factories  to  kill  or  maim  or  poison  over  half  a  million 
people  a  year,  was  a  disgrace  to  its  government.  Where 
upon  I  confided  my  plan  of  arousing  the  nation  by  my 
play.  He  eagerly  caught  at  the  idea  and  gave  me 
startling  figures  and  lurid  incidents  to  put  in.  But  when 
the  play  was  written  and  he  had  read  it  carefully  through, 
he  was  aghast  at  what  we  had  done.  I  had  a  good  title, 
"Underground."  But  now  with  a  groan  Sonfeldt 
exclaimed, 

"Ach — Gott!  The  whole  play  is  underground — the 
propaganda  has  buried  it  deep!  You  must  so  arrange 
that  the  propaganda  will  stay  beneath  and  be  not  seen — 
and  the  story  and  action  strongly  go!" 

Long  after  I  had  come  back  East,  I  slaved  like  a  dog 
on  that  child  of  my  brain.  At  last  it  was  done.  I  took 
it  to  a  manager,  who  read  it  and  informed  me  that  there 
were  two  subjects  under  the  sun  which  could  never  make 
a  cent  on  the  stage.  One  was  the  Labor  Movement  and 
the  other  Jesus  Christ.  "Leave  'em  alone,"  he  advised 
me.  Two  other  managers  turned  me  down.  In  disgust 
I  gave  the  play  to  an  agent  and  came  out  to  Seven  Pines 
for  my  summer's  vacation.  But  here,  some  two  weeks 
later,  I  was  summoned  one  night  by  a  boy  in  a  buggy 
to  come  to  the  "general  store"  in  the  village,  where  was 
a  long  distance  'phone.  And  there  I  learned  from  my 
agent  that  a  certain  manager  wanted  my  piece  on  the 
following  terms.  As  he  named  them,  I  said,  "Yes" — 
"Fine" — "I  agree" — in  a  state  of  mounting  excitement. 
With  Dorothy  and  her  mother  I  had  a  big  celebration 
that  night. 

"Seriously !"  cried  Dorothy.  "Wouldn't  it  be  too  won 
derful — if  you  become  a  dramatist  and  I  can  reach  the 
concert  stage!  Oh  dear,  if  only  I  weren't  so  old!" 


BLIND  121 

"Eighteen?"  I  smiled. 

"Yes,  eighteen — and  most  musicians  have  arrived  by 
that  time !  While  I  am  simply  nowhere !  Oh  mother,  why 
must  I  go  to  college  this  fall?" 

"Because,"  said  her  mother,  "you're  only  a  child — and 
before  you  attempt  the  piano  in  earnest  I  want  you  really 
to  know  your  own  mind." 

Then  they  turned  again  to  my  play  and  praised  it  to 
my  heart's  content. 

"Read  it  to  us !"  Dorothy  begged.  And  we  were  at  it 
half  the  night. 

I  threw  up  my  job  on  the  paper  and  gave  my  whole 
time  to  revising  the  play.  In  New  York,  at  my  manager's 
office  nobody  had  any  time  for  me;  they  had  a  whole 
string  of  plays  to  put  on,  and  mine  must  wait.  But  when 
its  turn  did  come,  in  the  fall,  the  whole  office  in  a 
twinkling  centered  its  attention  here.  In  a  fine  frenzy  the 
piece  was  cast  and  put  in  rehearsal.  In  charge  was  a  kind 
of  a  panther  man,  lithe,  wiry — he  moved  on  springs.  He 
had  a  thin  sardonic  face  and  eyes  that  looked  as  though 
all  the  thrills  of  the  world  had  scorched  them  long  ago. 
Hughey  Gore  knew  little  of  Colorado  mines,  but  a  lot 
about  giving  a  piece  "the  punch."  For  the  careful  facts 
and  figures  of  my  friend  from  Germany,  he  showed  not 
the  slightest  respect.  Out  they  went  or  around  they  were 
twisted. 

"Who'll  know  the  difference?"  he  asked.  "Say— what 
is  this,  anyhow — a  piece  or  a  sermon  ?  Put  it  across !" 

He  ruled  supreme.  I  had  signed  away  my  power  to 
oppose  him.  Moreover,  the  players,  who  rehearsed  for 
over  a  month  without  any  pay,  were  so  eager  to  "put  the 
piece  across"  and  thereby  get  salaries,  that  soon  I  was 
everybody's  slave.  Scene  by  scene  we  put  in  the  "pep," 
till  we  had  it  fairly  racing  along  to  a  picture  or  a  crash 
at  each  curtain.  Came  dress  rehearsal.  At  ten  a.  m.  the 
curtain  was  up  for  the  first  act,  and  at  eleven  o'clock  that 


122  BLIND 

night  we  wearily  left  the  theatre.  The  next  day  we 
started  out  on  the  road,  and  now  not  only  Hughey  Gore 
but  the  great  manager  himself  and  all  his  advisers  sat 
in  front.  More  changes  were  ordered.  Hughey  and  I 
would  have  supper  after  the  play  and  re-write  till  three 
a.  m. — then  sleep  a  few  hours,  breakfast,  call  the  company 
at  ten  and  hammer  the  new  stuff  into  their  heads  in 
time  for  the  night's  performance.  One  night  we  put  in 
a  new  third  act  and  left  the  fourth  act  as  it  was.  The 
two  had  no  connection,  but  this  did  not  trouble  Brother 
Gore.  He  wanted  to  see  the  effect  of  our  new  act  upon 
the  house.  When  the  curtain  was  down  we  went  to  bed, 
leaving  a  puzzled  audience  to  wonder  what  the  final  act 
had  to  do  with  the  rest  of  the  piece. 

This  weird  life  went  on  for  three  weeks.  The  'morale 
of  the  crowd  grew  shaky.  Though  Hughey  held  them 
sternly  in  line,  fights  and  jealousies  broke  out.  In  several 
towns  we  got  barely  a  hand.  Funereal  gloom  behind  the 
wings.  But  again  the  house  was  plainly  pleased,  and  then 
there  was  joy  and  hope  and  pride,  and  a  rush  for  the 
notices  the  next  day — not  the  reviews  of  the  whole  play 
but  the  tiny  passages  at  the  end  referring  to  the  per 
formances  of  this  and  that  player — "puffs"  or  "roasts" 
as  the  case  might  be.  The  strain  grew  tense.  The  leading 
woman  confided  to  me  that  she  had  been  in  two  failures 
that  year,  and  if  this  "perfectly  wonderful  play"  did  not 
succeed  she  did  not  know  how  she  would  ever  meet  her 
bills.  She  and  I  very  nearly  had  an  affair. 

At  last  we  came  into  New  York.  On  the  opening 
night,  as  the  theatre  filled,  a  fervent  desire  to  fade  away 
combined  with  a  numb  fascination  that  held  me  rooted 
to  the  spot.  But  when  the  orchestra  struck  up  I  abruptly 
left,  crossed  Broadway  and  stood  upon  the  opposite  side 
watching  the  crowds  that  poured  along  in  the  yellow 
glare  like  a  swift  river,  wave  on  wave,  bobbing,  surging 
this  way  and  that,  hurrying,  hurrying,  shoving,  laugh- 


BLIND  123 

ing.  In  a  harsh  gay  deafening  hubbub  on  they  came — 
bright  colors  in  hats  and  cloaks  and  dresses — while  from 
the  cabs  and  carriages  and  automobiles  that  jammed  the 
way  came  dainty  glittering  creatures  whose  lifted  skirts 
showed  satin  slippers,  silky  ankles.  As  one  of  them  got 
out  of  a  taxi,  I  heard  her  say  with  a  laugh  to  her  friends, 

"San  Antonio  was  nevah  like  this!" 

I  had  been  in  San  Antonio,  and  somehow  the  mention 
of  that  town  in  faraway  Texas  came  to  me  with  a  queer 
little  shock.  A  picture  of  its  principal  street  rose  up  clearly 
in  my  mind,  and  I  had  a  sudden  sense  of  the  many  towns 
and  cities  from  which  these  noisy  people  had  come.  On 
they  hurried — some  of  the  faces  friendly  and  appealing, 
other  faces  hard  as  nails.  Hurrying,  hurrying — to  what? 
To  see  my  piece?  Far  from  it!  Nearly  all  of  them  passed 
our  theatre  by.  I  recalled  the  lean  sardonic  smile  of 
Hughey  Gore  as  he  had  said, 

"What  do  they  care  for  your  ideas?  They're  a  lot  of 
God-forsaken  sheep.  Make  'em  bleat  and  you'll  sell  out 
the  house.  But  real  thinking?  Ba — ba — ba!" 

I  went  into  the  theatre.  I  found  the  house  was  nearly 
full;  but  as  the  gay  hubbub  increased,  again  I  asked 
what  such  people  cared  about  a  play  all  underground. 
They  wanted  to  laugh,  squeal,  shriek  and  shiver!  Noth 
ing  more ! 

A  slowly  deepening  hush,  a  glow,  and  the  curtain  rose 
abruptly. 

It  is  a  terrible  ordeal  to  sit  and  watch  a  piece  of  your 
own,  and  feel  every  laugh  and  thrill  instantly  approved 
or  damned.  They  come  so  fast,  and  you  know  they  are 
coming.  Growing  tense  and  taunt  you  wait.  A  burst  of 
laughter.  "It  got  across !"  But  before  you  have  had  but 
a  moment  of  triumph,  along  comes  another — a  thriller 
this  time.  And  it  fails  to  thrill — it  misses  fire — there  are 
snickers  all  about !  And  the  cold  chills  go  creeping  down 
the  author's  spinal  column ! 


124  BLIND 

But  now  as  act  by  act  went  by  I  began  to  sense  about 
me  a  feeling  that  here  was  something  out  of  the  common. 
I  caught  approving  nods  and  looks  from  various  radical 
friends  of  mine  who  applauded  certain  red-hot  lines.  The 
big  scene  came — twelve  men  and  a  boy  trapped  in  a 
chamber  underground.  Walls  of  black,  wet,  glistening 
coal  and  heavy  timbers  stark  as  death.  Their  struggles, 
their  wild  bitter  talk — ending  up  in  a  big  speech.  Down 
came  the  curtain.  A  moment's  pause  and  it  rose  again — 
"two  days  later'* — to  disclose  the  same  grim  scene  with 
its  thirteen  dead.  Then  from  one  damp  dripping  wall  an 
enormous  chunk  of  coal  suddenly  fell  with  a  loud  crash. 
Little  shrieks  from  all  over  the  dark  house!  A  satisfied 
grunt  from  Hughey  Gore.  A  slow  silent  curtain,  up  went 
the  lights,  and  all  about  me  I  could  see  tense  faces.  Rising 
waves  of  applause  and  a  roar  for  the  author ! 

My  curtain  speech  was  brief  that  night,  but  later  on  in 
a  cafe  with  many  friends  and  relatives  I  responded  to  the 
toast,  and  it  was  hard  for  me  to  hide  my  deep,  deep 
exultation.  I  remember  my  father's  glow  of  pride,  Aunt 
Amelia's  smiling  face,  and  my  German  friend  who  was 
happy  as  I.  "Great,  great  propaganda !"  he  cried.  Beside 
him  sat  young  Dorothy,  back  from  college  for  the  event. 
She  was  an  adorable  kid  that  night.  While  eagerly  dis 
cussing  with  him  her  hope  to  study  music  in  his  beloved 
Fatherland,  she  kept  darting  radiant  looks  at  me.  Obvi 
ously  I  had  arrived ! 

Later  in  their  little  brown  house  I  talked  for  hours 
with  Lucy  and  Steve,  and  told  of  the  plays  I  meant  to 
write.  The  brilliant  future  loomed  so  close  I  had  it  almost 
in  my  hand.  I  told  them  why  our  American  drama  had 
been  such  a  trivial  thing.  It  was  because  the  managers 
had  never  sized  up  the  public  right,  had  never  got  to  the 
heart  and  soul  of  the  great  warm  splendid  American 
people,  for  whom  that  night  I  felt  a  boundless  grateful 


BLIND  125 

love  .  .  »  I  noticed  that  Steve  and  Lucy  were  yawning. 

"Great  Scott,  what  a  young  fool  I  am — keeping  you 
people  up!  It's  three  o'clock!" 

Lucy  kissed  me  good-night. 

"Oh  my  dear,"  she  said,  "I  hope  the  play  is  such  a 
splendid  big  success!" 

I  laughed  and  went  on  up  to  bed.  They  had  asked  me 
to  stay  with  them  that  night.  I  slept  a  few  hours,  awoke 
with  a  start,  and  in  a  moment  remembering  and  feeling 
a  sharp  chill  of  suspense,  I  threw  on  my  clothes,  hurried 
downstairs,  and  found  the  nine  morning  papers  which  I 
had  ordered  the  day  before.  And  on  that  dark  December 
morn,  without  any  breakfast,  empty  and  cold,  I  read  one 
after  another  the  notices  that  killed  my  play. 

"Highbrow"— "morbid"— "deadly  dull"— "amateur 
ish"— "preachy"— "doomed." 

I  read  them  sitting  very  still.  All  at  once  I  fiercely 
rebelled.  What  did  these  fool  critics  know  ?  Had  not  the 
house  gone  wild  at  the  piece — at  every  act,  at  every  line? 
'But  as  though  in  answer,  I  read  this : 

"House  packed  with  friends  and  radicals  who  did  their 
best  to  save  the  play,  but  with  the  general  public  it  will 
never  have  a  chance." 

All  right,  all  right,  we  would  see  about  that !  I  walked 
excitedly  up  and  down.  I  heard  Steve  and  Lucy  coming 
downstairs.  Now  they  were  reading.  My  head  ached. 
How  cold  it  was !  That  infernal  OberookofT  had  forgotten 
the  furnace  again!  He,  too,  had  gone  to  my  opening; 
this  morning  he  had  been  here  before  me,  had  read  the 
papers  and  in  his  depression  all  thought  tof  the  furnace 
had  slipped  his  mind.  Savagely  looking  for  him  now,  I 
found  him  out  in  the  vestibule  perched  on  a  step-ladder 
there  and  very  gloomily  cleaning  the  small  window  over 
the  door.  Abruptly  I  cried, 

"Look  here,  Oberookoff ," 


126  BLIND 

But  he  gave  such  a  start  that  he  lost  his  balance.  Down 
he  came!  And  a  few  moments  later  Steve  announced, 

"The  poor  boob  has  broken  his  arm." 

Still  no  breakfast.  On  the  whole  a  very  dismal  morn 
ing.  And  it  was  followed  by  dreary  nights  when  arriving 
at  the  theatre  and  anxiously  asking,  "What  is  the  house?" 
from  the  box  office  would  come  the  growl,  "Less  than  a 
hundred  dollars  tonight."  I  watched  that  Broadway 
throng  go  by — laughing,  chattering,  bleating  sheep.  In 
the  theatre,  night  after  night,  I  sat  in  the  half  empty 
place  and  heard  the  snickers  and  weary  sighs.  Behind 
the  scenes  was  an  awful  gloom. 

But  one  evening  in  the  lobby  a  fat  serious  radical  friend 
gripped  my  hand  and  said  to  me, 

"A  wonderful  piece,  old  fellow !  If  it  doesn't  get  over, 
your  next  one  will!"  And  he  added  impressively,  "The 
Single  Tax  would  have  saved  your  play." 

At  once  growing  interested  then  in  the  theory  of  the 
Single  Tax,  I  took  him  out  to  have  a  drink,  and  he 
enlarged  on  his  statement.  Land  values  in  New  York,  he 
said,  had  risen  so  outrageously  that  the  rent  of  a  Broad 
way  theatre  was  a  thousand  dollars  a  week.  So  a  strong 
fine  intellectual  play  could  not  live  unless  it  appealed  at 
once  to  the  rich  vulgar  common  herd.  In  an  hour  he  had 
persuaded  me  to  become  the  dramatic  critic  of  "The 
Single  Taxer."  This  soothed  me  a  bit.  More  balm 
arrived  in  the  form  of  flattering  notices  in  various  radical 
papers  and  so-called  "high-brow"  magazines.  I  was  "a 
hope,"  "a  portent,"  and  even  "a  light  on  the  horizon." 
My  play  was  "the  first  rumble  from  the  proletarian 
depths";  it  was  "the  first  wind  of  the  dawn." 

In  my  family  it  was  not  so.  Dad  plainly  considered 
the  piece  a  frost;  Aunt  Fanny  was  beautifully  sympa 
thetic;  Lucy  and  Steve  were  friendly  and  kind;  even 
Aunt  Amelia  was  depressed.  But  there  was  one  of  them 
at  least  who  still  gave  me  what  I  craved.  On  the  night 


BLIND  127 

my  play  was  taken  off,  my  cousin  Dorothy  came  to  town. 
She  had  saved  her  money,  bless  her,  and  bought  two 
boxes  and  filled  them  with  friends,  blooming  college  girls 
and  boys.  She  persuaded  me  to  join  them  there.  And 
they  looked  on  me  with  such  evident  awe  and  admiration 
— as  a  journalist  who  lived  in  the  slums,  a  socialist,  an 
anarchist,  and  above  all  a  writer  of  plays — that  I  was 
soon  placidly  acting  a  part.  I  took  them  behind  the 
scenes,  where  they  did  not  notice  the  gloom;  and  after 
the  play  I  rushed  them  down  in  taxis  to  my  studio  for  a 
shadowy  supper  dance. 

3. 

In  the  next  two  weeks  I  saw  much  of  "my  niece,"  as 
I  called  Dorothy  at  the  time.  It  made  her  perfectly  furi 
ous.  "I'm  not  your  niece — I'm  your  cousin !"  She  would 
turn  away,  and  then  swinging  around  she  would  implore. 
"Oh  Larry,  please  be  nice  to  me!"  The  stout- waisted, 
merry,  solemn,  emphatic  kid  of  a  few  years  back  had 
been  transformed  by  magic — her  figure  softly  rounded 
out,  small  hands  and  feet,  and  soft  blonde  hair  curling 
down  into  her  eyes,  to  be  blown  back  impatiently.  Her 
eyes  were  still  a  vivid  blue.  They  would  never  meet  mine 
for  more  than  a  moment,  then  dart  away.  She  was  an 
intimate  lovable  girl,  all  filled  with  new  intensities.  She 
was  not  so  sure  of  her  music  now,  although  she  was 
working  hard  at  it  still  and  had  not  given  up  her  plan 
of  going  abroad  to  study. 

"For  the  pure  joy  of  playing — yes;  but  for  a  life  pro 
fession — no.  Or  at  least  I'm  not  so  certain.  I'm  afraid 
— oh  I  don't  know — I  simply  cannot  see  myself  in 
Carnegie  Hall — making  a  really  big  success !  I'm  too  old  I 
The  others  have  such  a  start!  And  I  want  it  real  or 
nothing — no  matter  what  it  is  I  do !  And  I  find  there 
are  so  many  things!" 

From  Seven  Pines  we  took  long  walks  back  into  the 


128  BLIND 

Christmasy  hills,  and  she  talked  of  her  friends  at  college. 
Some  were  "perfect  wonders;"  some,  "too  detestable  for 
words."  She  talked  of  the  long  talks  they  had,  and  then 
of  long  talks  about  these  talks  with  her  mother,  whom 
we  both  agreed  was,  "simply  a  human  miracle."  She  was 
such  a  "practical"  mother.  Without  having  been  to  col 
lege  herself,  she  could  so  wonderfully  "enter  in"  and  give 
such  mighty  sound  advice.  What  Dorothy  wanted  to  do, 
I  learned,  was  to  make  such  a  place  for  herself  in  college 
that  her  daughter  later  on— but  at  this  point  she  reddened 
a  bit,  called  herself  a  little  goose,  and  began  to  ask  me 
rapid  questions  as  to  my  work  and  the  life  I  led  with 
anarchists. 

"What  do  they  really  want  and  mean?" 

But  this  sort  of  talk  went  better  in  town.  When  she 
came  to  Lucy  to  spend  the  night,  I  took  her  to  the  theatre 
and  after  that  to  a  cafe;  and  there  she  asked  the  most 
unexpected  and  the  most  surprising  things  as  to  life  in 
this  roaring  world  today,  in  which  college  girls  she  was 
convinced  would  soon  play  a  tremendous  part.  "So  we 
simply  have  to  know  things,  you  see!"  I  began  to  tell 
her  things.  When  she  went  back  to  college  I  sent  her 
books  she  ought  to  read ;  and  when  she  came  again  to  the 
city  I  read  her  a  new  play  of  mine  and  took  her  to  several 
radical  meetings,  where  she  sat  bolt  upright,  round-eyed, 
missing  not  a  trick.  In  Lucy's  home  we  had  long  dis 
cussions,  and  Dorothy  eagerly  told  her  plans.  She  wanted 
to  work,  to  have  a  real  job,  to  do  something,  get  some 
thing,  be  something.  Good-naturedly  I  told  her  that  she 
ought  to  be  my  wife. 

"I  can't !"  she  exclaimed.  "I'm  your  cousin !"  At  our 
laughter  she  blushed  crimson.  "Larry,  I  hate  you!"  she 
declared. 

Just  before  the  beginning  of  summer,  one  night  out  at 
Seven  Pines,  her  mother  spoke  of  her  and  said, 

"I  want  you  to  be  careful,  Larry." 


BLIND  129 

I  looked  at  my  aunt  in  blank  surprise,  then  started  to 
laugh,  and  at  her  look  of  discomfiture  I  laughed  till  the 
tears  were  in  my  eyes.  My  arm  was  around  her  and  I 
said, 

"My  dear  but  sentimental  aunt " 

"I  am  not  sentimental !" 

"Then  learn  the  truth.  For  your  nephew  is  a  wise  old 
guy  and  he  knows  young  Dorothy  like  a  book.  If  she 
marries  at  all  it  will  not  be  till  after  forty  such  affairs. 
My  only  fear  for  that  lovable  kid  is  that  she'll  live  and 
die  an  old  maid." 

"I  should  not  be  displeased — not  displeased  in  the 
least,"  said  Aunt  Amelia  stiffly.  "You  talk  as  if  it  were 
a  disgrace.  I  should  think,  Larry,  that  with  your  views — 
views  of  the  most  modern  kind,  and  some  of  them  boyish, 
to  say  the  least — the  idea  of  a  self-respecting,  freedom- 
loving  woman's  remaining  single  if  she  likes " 

"Gosh  but  you're  modern!"  I  exclaimed.  And  we 
laughed  and  kissed  each  other.  For  all  my  attempts  to 
make  fun  of  her,  I  could  not  conceal  my  admiration  for 
the  way  she  kept  up  with  the  times.  She  helped  me  con 
stantly  with  my  plays — a  keen  discerning  critic  and 
friend.  She  was  forever  reading  new  books,  and  such 
affairs  as  suffrage  meetings  did  not  phase  her  in  the 
least.  She  even  marched  in  a  parade.  Her  old  hunger 
for  new  things  was  almost  deeper  than  before.  She  now 
had  a  car  which  she  declared  had  restored  the  wings  of 
her  youth.  In  this  she  frequently  flew  to  town.  Her 
chauffeur  knew  her  love  of  speed,  and — I  regret  to  tell  it 
— my  dear  patriotic  aunt  was  "pinched"  one  day  for 
breaking  the  laws  of  her  beloved  country. 

"You're  absolutely  right,  young  man,"  she  said  bravely 
to  the  cop. 


4. 
But  if  my  Aunt  Amelia  had  splendidly  retained  her 


130  BLIND 

youth,  there  was  somebody  else  in  the  family  whose 
aging  filled  me  with  regret.  Where  was  my  chum  of  long 
ago?  Steve  was  growing  middle-aged.  There  was  a  time 
when  he  could  be  stirred  to  mirth  or  pity,  wonder,  anger, 
by  the  numberless  miracles  to  be  seen  in  this  hodge-podge 
of  a  town.  And  once  he  had  shown  an  open  mind  to  the 
big  startling  ideas  expressed  by  radical  friends  of  mine, 
who  knew  the  truest  thing  in  the  world — that  only  by 
the  sweeping  statements,  the  courageously  shouted  half- 
truths,  of  the  few  daring  pioneers  is  the  path  cut  through 
the  jungle  for  the  accurate  chaps  behind.  But  Steve's 
mind  was  closing  now.  Not  that  he  was  sleepy  or  dull 
— the  fact  was,  he  had  hit  his  stride  and  his  mind  was 
simply  racing  along.  The  passion  of  our  nation  for  speed 
had  got  him  and  he  was  narrowing  down — although,  as 
often  happens,  to  himself  he  seemed  to  be  broadening. 

That  is  one  of  the  great  queer  secrets*  of  this  strenuous 
life  of  ours.  Broad-minded  foreign  visitors  see  fellows 
like  Steve  with  a  look  upon  their  faces  as  though  they 
were  driving  racing  cars,  and  the  smiling  foreigners 
never  suspect  that  each  of  these  racing  Yankees  is  in 
reality  broadening — rapidly  and  feverishly — in  a  world 
to  him  so  wonderful  that  he  gladly  shuts  out  all  other 
worlds  as  annoying  obstacles  in  the  way  of  the  bright 
and  limitless  vistas  before  his  keen  and  hungry  eyes. 

I  met  a  wholesale  plumber  once  who  had  narrowed 
down  to  bathtubs.  In  a  single  hour's  talk  he  took  my 
mind  and  fancy  soaring  after  him  over  our  land.  Out 
over  the  sultry  deserts  and  plains  we  flew  on  the  wings 
of  the  morning  like  gods,  showering  bathtubs  on  man 
kind.  Then  he  spoke  of  the  market  of  the  world.  Hef 
took  me  to  Russia,  Italy,  France,  Africa,  China  and 
India.  His  mind  had  roved  all  over  the  earth,  swooping 
down  upon  filthy  Russian  huts  or  stinking  cities  in  the 
Far  East.  He  had  learned  how  many  times  a  year  thef 
peoples  of  the  earth  took  baths — indoors  in  tubs  or 


BLIND  I3t 

clouds  of  steam  and  in  the  sea,  the  lakes  and  the 
rivers.  He  had  done  this  to  the  neglect  of  his  business. 

'The  fact  is,"  he  confided,  "it  has  become  a  hobby 
of  mine." 

It  was  more  than  that,  it  had  become  a  great  world 
wide  crusade  of  his.  Hundreds  of  millions  of  poor  devils 
needed  a  bath  and  didn't  know  it.  But  they  would ! 

"I  want  to  say,"  he  told  me,  "that  the  people  of  this 
earth,  my  friend,  are  headed  straight  for  democracy — a 
square  deal  for  every  little  kid  from  his  birth  clear 
through  to  his  funeral.  I  don't  care  whether  he's  a  Wop 
or  a  Greaser,  a  Nigger,  a  Hindoo  or  a  Chink,  or  a  Christ- 
forsaken  little  Turk.  They're  all  going  to  wake  up  to  the 
fact  that  they've  been  stung  from  the  days  of  the  Ark — 
that  they  need  baths — clean  decent  homes,  good  schools 
for  their  kids,  the  right  to  vote — for  the  president,  gov 
ernors,  congressmen  and — oh  hell,  all  that  stuff!  And 
they're  going  to  get  it!" 

This  was  but  his  starting  point,  mere  elemental  justice. 
He  went  on  to  reveal  to  me  what  things  of  beauty  baths 
could  be.  He  took  me  to  the  unfinished  house  of  a  brand- 
new  millionaire  and  showed  me  a  spacious  chamber  there, 
its  walls  and  ceilings  rosy  with  nude  joyous  dancing 
maids,  its  lighting  artfully  contrived  to  simulate  that  of 
a  woodland  glade — and  in  its  floor  broad  marble  steps 
led  down  to  a  bath  the  like  of  which  I  had  not  dreamed 
existed. 

"I've  been  studying  Roman  history  lately,"  said  my 
narrow  Yankee  friend. 

To  return  to  Steve,  he  was  like  that — narrowing,  but 
all  the  while  feeling  the  world  he  had  chosen  broaden 
out  before  his  eyes  in  a  way  so  swift  and  dazzling  that 
his  days  and  nights  became  one  long  exciting  race  to 
keep  up. 

"If  your  revolutionist  friends,"  he  said,  "would  quit 
looking  way  ahead  to  a  little  toy  impractical  world  con- 


132  BLIND 

cocted  out  of  their  own  heads — and  would  wake  up  and 
see  what's  here — they'd  realize  we  are  rushing  along  as 
humanity  never  rushed  before.  To  keep  up  with  my  job 
today,  there  are  a  thousand  books  I  should  read,  and  a 
hundred  magazines  a  month — most  of  'em  in  foreign 
languages." 

Then  he  would  describe  to  me,  in  terms  cold  and 
technical,  the  triumphs,  the  discoveries  and  still  more  the 
baffling  and  therefore  doubly  fascinating  unsolved  prob 
lems  in  his  world.  It  was  exasperating  to  be  tied  so 
closely  to  his  job.  But  Bannard,  his  chief,  was  getting 
old.  He  was  turning  over  more  and  more  of  his  most 
serious  cases  to  Steve,  and  was  loading  on  him  besides 
the  graceless  job  of  begging  funds  for  the  large  busy 
hospital  of  which  Bannard  was  in  charge.  Steve  was 
forever  scouting  about  some  millionaire  or  other,  learn 
ing  how  to  approach  the  man  and  coax  the  money  out 
of  him.  He  had  lost  his  dread  of  being  known  as  a  rich 
girl's  husband  now,  for  by  hard  work  he  had  made  good, 
his  position  was  secure;  and  so  he  no  longer  balked  at 
asking  aid  from  men  like  Dad.  The  government  ought 
to  back  such  work,  but  Steve's  contempt  for  the  politi 
cians  was  even  deeper  than  before.  His  attitude  was 
shown  one  night  at  a  meeting  of  doctors  in  his  house. 
Most  of  them  were  from  the  tenements.  I  forget  what 
the  meeting  was  about,  but  I  remember  clearly  how  a 
little  Russian  Jew  raised  a  terrible  storm  by  his  speech. 

"In  New  York  if  a  doctor  is  honest,  he  gotta  admit 
he's  a  grafter,"  he  said.  "I  don't  blame  him — understand 
— I  got  a  family  of  my  own  an'  I  gotta  earn  a  living — 
an'  half  my  patients  don't  pay  me  a  cent.  So  when  I  get 
a  patient  who  pays,  what  can  I  do?  I  get  what  I  can. 
Sometimes  I  try  to  stop  myself.  Last  month  I  took  out 
an  appendix.  The  operation  was  O.  K.  Now  you  gentle 
men  know  that  after  the  first  few  days  in  a  case  like4 
that — no  complications — everything  nice — you  don't 


BLIND  133 

need  to  see  the  patient  each  day.  But  the  boy's  mother 
was  crazy  about  him.  She  said  to  me,  'Doctor,  please 
come  twice  a  day'.  I  said  to  her,  'Mrs.  Weinstein,  your 
boy's  doing  well,  he's  all  out  of  danger  and  you  are  poor. 
Be  sensible.  Keep  your  money'.  So  I  tried  to  stop 
myself.  But  did  I  fool  myself?  Not  at  all.  Even  while  I 
was  talking  I  thought  to  myself,  'This  will  make  her 
think — what  an  honest  doctor.  He  tries  to  lose  money*. 
And  sure  enough.  Mrs.  Weinstein  smiled  on  me  like  a 
mother.  'Doctor,'  she  said,  'you're  an  honest  man.  I 
want  everything  done  for  my  little  boy — understand? — 
all  the  modern  improvemnts.  I  leave  it  to  you'.  So  she 
left  it  to-  me.  An'  she  got  all  the  modern  improvements ! 

"An'  take  it  again  when  you  have  a  patient  who  is  a 
case  for  a  specialist.  You  take  him  there,  and  it's  ten  to 
one  you  never  get  from  the  patient  a  cent.  If  he  lives 
he  pays  the  specialist,  and  if  he  dies  his  family  pays — • 
but  you  they  forget,  you  were  only  the  doctor  called  in 
at  the  start.  So  the  specialist  sends  in  a  bill  with  your 
fee  included  in  his  own,  and  then  he  sends  you  your 
percentage.  If  he  don't  he  knows  damn  well  you'll  never 
take  him  a  patient  again.  All  right — it's  legal — but  it's 
graft.  I  want  to  be  honest  with  myself.  Am  I  worse 
than  the  rest?  Am  I  even  as  bad?  Not  at  all.  On  my 
street  I'm  the  only  doctor  who  won't  take  abortions — 
and  I'm  the  only  doctor  there  who  don't  own  a  big  auto 
mobile." 

His  speech  was  interrupted  by  a  perfect  storm  of  pro 
test.  Doctors  jumped  up  all  over  the  room  to  express 
their  utter  disdain  for  this  wretched  little  grafter  who 
judged  others  by  himself.  His  face  grew  red  and  he  rose 
again. 

"I  am  ashamed  of  you !"  he  cried.  "A  few  of  you  are 
born  in  New  York — their  talk  I  can  understand.  But  half 
of  you  come  from  Russia — and  there  a  man  may  graft 
like  hell,  but  at  least  he  is  honest  with  himself.  He  don't 


134  BLIND 

fool  himself.  When  he  looks  at  himself  he  sees  himself. 
He  even  learns  to  enjoy  himself  by  telling  himself  what 
a  God-damn  mess  he  has  made  of  himself !  I  don't  mean 
we  should  do  that  here.  Here  I  am  an  American — I  have 
reached  the  Promised  Land.  I  am  in  a  free  country,  and 
I  say,  'Well,  what  are  you  going  to  do  with  yourself? 
Stop  talking— do  something — do  it  quick!'  And  what  I 
want  we  should  do  is  this.  We  should  have  a  campaign 
and  say  to  the  people,  'Why  should  we  spend  half  our 
time  on  cases  that  don't  bring  a  cent?  We  are  men  like 
you,  with  families — we  need  the  money — so  we  graft. 
And  this  is  bad  for  us  and  you.  The  sick  are  the  business 
of  you  all — for  if  the  sick  aren't  treated  right,  you  get 
epidemics  and  so  on.  The  city  should  pay  us  for  our 
work — so  that  we  can  get  out  of  the  rush  for  the  dollar 
and  give  our  whole  lives  to  our  science,  to  study  and  keep 
ourselves  up  to  date — and  for  any  patient,  rich  or  poor, 
give  the  best  treatment  to  be  had' !" 

I  remember  the  uproar  that  followed  his  speech,  and 
how  Steve  rising  lean  and  tall  among  those  excitable  for 
eigners  began  in  his  quiet  Yankee  way. 

"To  a  certain  extent  I  agree,"  he  said,  "with  much 
that  the  previous  speaker  has  said.  I'll  talk  like  a  Rus 
sian  and  admit  that  I  can  remember  a  case  or  two  where 
I  used  'all  the  modern  improvements/  But  the  remedy  he 
suggests  makes  me  think  that  he  has  forgotten  the  habit 
of  looking  facts  in  the  face,  which  he  learned  to  enjoy  so 
deeply  over  there  in  his  native  land.  For  although  he 
cannot  trust  himself  he  wants  to  trust  his  government. 
My  advice  to  our  analytical  friend  is  that,  instead  of 
fooling  himself  by  declaring  joyously,  'Here  I  am  in  the 
Promised  Land,  a  great  free  country' — let  him  ask. 
'What  is  this  country?  How  much  do  the  mass  of  the 
people  really  care  for  their  government?'  What  have 
they  made  it?  Is  there  such  honor  and  wisdom  in  the 


BLIND  135 

gang  at  City  Hall,  that  we  doctors  want  to  place  ourselves 
and  all  our  patients  rich  and  poor  entirely  under  their 
tender  care,  their  wise  and  intelligent  control?  If  we  give 
the  Health  Department  a  hundred  million  dollars  a  year 
to  be  paid  in  doctors'  salaries,  how  long  do  you  think  the 
politicians  will  leave  the  Health  Department  alone? 

"I  wasn't  born  in  Russia,  but  all  my  life  it  seems  to 
me  I've  been  facing  the  facts — and  getting  bumped.  I 
haven't  many  illusions  left;  I  have  lost  one  by  one  nearly 
all  of  my  gods.  But  one  thing  is  left  to  me,  and  that  is 
my  deep  humble  faith  in  the  astounding  progress  made 
by  medical  men  in  every  land.  I  find  myself  constantly 
out  of  breath  from  trying  to  keep  up  with  them.  And 
so  amazingly  swift  is  their  march,  and  so  dazzling  is  the 
hope  for  all  humanity  in  their  work,  that  although  I 
myself  began  at  the  bottom  I  say,  Tor  the  sake  of  the 
health  of  mankind  don't  slow  up  science  by  binding  it 
down  to  the  dull  slow  mind  of  the  average  man — don't 
make  it  wait  for  democracy !'  The  average  man  is  a  poor 
little  cuss  who  can't  see  farther  than  his  nose.  The  great 
common  mass  of  the  people  are  sheep,  and  their  govern 
ments  are  poor  affairs.  And  at  least  for  many  years  to 
come  our  science  must  look  for  support  not  to  the  com 
mon  masses  but  to  those  big  men  at  the  top  who  have 
the  minds  and  vision  to  see  the  importance  of  our  work, 
and  the  money  with  which  to  drive  it  on !" 

To  this  view  Steve  had  arrived.  When  we  were  left* 
alone  that  night  I  told  him  heatedly  that  he  was  wrong 
— that  things  were  just  the  other  way,  that  people  were 
not  sheep  but  men,  with  angry  and  impatient  eyes — that 
democracy  was  unlikely  to  wait  for  his  science,  which 
was  slow !  But  his  only  answer  was  a  smile. 

That  our  points  of  view  were  miles  apart,  was  apparent 
again  in  his  hospital — for  the  city  poured  in  and  was 
mirrored  there. 


136      »  BLIND 

In  another  hospital  years  ago,  I  had  seen  only  "head 
line  patients" — meek  old  clergymen  side  by  side  with 
Tenderloin  girls  and  young  millionaires,  furious  tene 
ment  housewives,  murderers,  burglars,  Wall  Street 
brokers,  brooding  inventors  and  poets  half  mad — some 
of  them  singing  as  they  came,  or  groaning,  laughing, 
gibbering.  But  it  seemed  to  me  now  I  saw  deeper  than 
that.  I  saw  a  few  people  in  private  rooms  with  special 
nursing,  the  best  of  care;  while  the  common  herd  were 
in  long  crowded  wards  where  delirious  patients  or  those 
who  were  dying  made  the  night  hideous  for  the  rest. 
I  saw  the  wrecks  of  over-work  in  sweat-shops  and  in 
factories;  I  saw  men  crippled  or  paralyzed  from  accidents 
along  the  docks;  and  one  afternoon  I  watched  the  arrival 
of  ambulances  and  even  trucks  loaded  with  what  at  first 
appeared  to  be  enormous  bundles  of  rags,  with  long 
human  hair  hanging  out  at  the  ends — they  were  girls 
from  a  factory  fire.  I  saw  a  case  of  blood-poisoning 
there,  a  man  castrated  by  his  wife.  It  had  been  done  with 
his  consent  because,  she  said,  they  could  not  afford  to 
risk  having  any  more  children.  I  saw  people  of  all  races 
there.  They  arrived  dressed  like  Americans;  but  in  the 
life-and-death  crises  inside,  the  thin  veneer  of  Ameri 
canism  disappeared,  and  in  many  tongues,  in  torrents  of 
words  now  gutteral,  now  sweet  and  low,  was  revealed  the 
vast  dark  background  of  memories  from  foreign  lands, 
beliefs  and  superstitions,  habits,  customs,  loves  and  hates, 
that  looms  over  the  city  of  New  York  ...  In  brief,  I 
saw  wealth  and  poverty,  and  the  races  of  the  earth — all 
there. 

But  Steve  saw  nothing  of  the  kind.  As  he  went  about 
the  hospital  immersed  in  his  work  of  every  day,  he  was 
to  all  appearances  as  blind  as  a  practical  man  can  be;  and 
like  so  many  practical  men  he  was  a  hardened  optimist. 
To  my  talk  he  replied  impatiently  by  comparing  the 


BLIND  137 

hospital  of  today  with  that  of  twenty  years  before.  The 
world  was  growing  better,  not  worse.  His  hospital,  he 
admitted,  was  a  mere  oasis  still.  The  sick  went  back  into 
tenement  homes  to  convalesce  in  dirt  and  din;  they  often 
had  relapses  and  died.  But  he  had  his  remedy  for  that. 
With  his  chief  he  was  planning  a  service  of  visiting 
nurses  and  doctors  to  watch  these  convalescents,  and  he 
looked  to  a  time  not  far  ahead  when  every  tenement  in 
town  would  have  a  "health  station"  close  at  hand.  Prac 
tically  all  sick  people,  unless  they  had  exceptional  homes, 
would  be  taken  to  hospitals  where  they  belonged.  Epi 
demics  would  be  squelched  at  the  start. 

"We  propose,"  he  said,  "not  only  to  heal  them  after 
they're  sick,  but  to  keep  the  damn  fools  healthy." 

At  this,  in  my  most  withering  tone,  I  asked  how  it 
felt  to  be  God  Almighty.  Though  I  was  nearly  thirty 
now,  my  old  instinctive  love,  as  a  boy,  of  mixing  with 
all  sorts  and  kinds,  was  become  a  fierce  religion.  It  was 
called  Democracy.  But  even  in  those  fiery  days,  there 
came  to  me  at  moments  a  glimmering  of  what  it  was  that 
made  Steve's  secret  inner  life.  It  was  his  ever  deepening 
passion  for  the  use  of  the  knife.  The  deftness  of  his  won 
derful  hands  and  the  miracles  which  they  performed 
•were  the  talk  of  surgeons  all  over  town.  And  engrossed 
in  this  never  ending  fight,  in  the  weird  mystery  of  it 
all,  for  him  such  trivial  little  things  as  classes,  races  and 
the  like,  dwindled  away.  Though  money  came  to  him 
quickly  now,  he  seemed  to  have  no  thought  of  it.  He  saw 
less  and  less  of  his  family.  There  were  moments  when 
he  came  out  of  his  trance  and  realized  the  pace  he  was 
hitting.  But  it  could  not  be  helped,  he  said;  there  was 
so  much  to  do  and  learn,  and  he  had  so  little  time. 

"In  these  days  if  a  surgeon  reaches  the  top,  he  does  it 
only  by  work  so  hard  that  he  hasn't  the  stuff  left  in  him 
to  stay  there  over  twenty  years." 


138  BLIND 

For  him  those  years  lay  just  ahead.  Already  old  Ban- 
nard  was  stepping  down  and  generously  doing  all  he 
could  to  leave  the  younger  man  in  his  place. 

And  so  in  the  year  1905,  this  tall,  powerful,  low-voiced 
Yank,  who  in  1893  had  been  Aunt  Amelia's  "stable  boy," 
was  on  the  eve  of  immense  success. 

For  such  things  do  still  happen  here. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

1. 

BUT  it's  queer  how  things  will  happen — even  to  these 
scientists.  There  is  something  so  damnably  savage  at 
times  in  the  way  this  universe  is  run.  Here  was  a  man 
who  probably  saved  hundreds  of  lives  every  year.  I  had 
seen  him  narrow  into  his  rut,  which  became  to  him  a 
race-course  high  up  on  a  mountain  ridge,  from  which  he 
saw  big  visions  of  what  his  science  was  to  do.  But  now 
in  a  twinkling  that  was  changed — by  a  slip,  the  merest 
little  chance. 

Early  on  a  winter's  night  he  left  the  house  of  a  patient 
and  was  driven  to  his  hospital.  He  had  eaten  no  lunch 
and  was  tired  and  hungry,  but  he  still  had  before  him  a 
case  that  required  immediate  operation.  It  was  a  most 
unusual  case,  and  for  all  his  fatigue  he  was  eager  to  start, 
to  open  up  his  patient  and  find  if  his  diagnosis  were 
right.  In  spite  of  the  late  hour,  many  of  the  students 
had  waited  to  see  the  operation,  which  was  to  be  a  clinic 
affair.  Several  other  surgeons  were  there,  and  the 
internes  of  the  hospital.  The  patient  was  already  inside, 
being  given  the  anaesthetic.  His  wife,  a  thin  dark  middle- 
aged  Jewess,  suddenly  seized  Steve's  arm  in  the  hall. 
He  glanced  down  at  her  frightened  face,  and  to  her 
incoherent  entreaties  he  made  a  quick  gruff  kind  reply. 
His  fatigue  was  forgotten.  For  the  last  time  in  his  life 
he  felt  that  tightening  of  the  energies,  that  tense  and 
quiet  feeling  of  power. 

The  operation  turned  out  to  be  even  more  than  he  had 
expected.  There  were  complications.  An  hour  passed. 
In  the  crowded  little  theatre,  he  forgot  the  mass  of  faces 

139 


140  BLIND 

steeply  sloping  all  about  him  and  the  rows  of  straining 
eyes.  He  spoke  only  to  mutter  quick  requests;  more 
often  he  merely  reached  out  his  hand,  and  his  eager 
slaves  divined  what  he  wished.  From  time  to  time  he 
glanced  at  the  man  who  was  giving  the  ether.  Then  on 
with  the  race.  And  all  so  silent.  Barely  a  sound. 

When  at  last  his  work  was  done,  he  noticed  that  the 
rubber  glove  on  his  right  hand  had  been  slightly  torn, 
and  on  one  of  his  ringers  was  a  scratch.  He  scowled  with 
annoyance.  These  things  happen.  He  scrubbed  up  with 
disinfectants  and  went  home  for  a  light  supper.  He  went 
to  bed,  he  was  fearfully  tired  and  almost  instantly 
dropped  asleep.  But  toward  dawn  he  awoke  with  a  start. 

"Who  is  it?"  he  asked  abruptly. 

For  a  moment  there  was  no  reply.  Then  he  felt  a  dull 
little  pain  in  his  ringer.  Asd  as  he  lay  there  in  the  dark, 
his  annoyance  changed  to  uneasiness.  He  got  out  of  bed 
and  went  down  to  his  office,  used  a  lance  and  did  various 
things.  Now  his  head  was  aching,  too,  and  the  rest  of 
the  night  he  could  not  sleep.  The  next  day  he  was 
running  a  temperature.  "It's  nothing!"  he  said  impa 
tiently;  but  Bannard  being  summoned  ordered  him  to 
stay  in  bed.  There  his  condition  grew  rapidly  worse ;  and 
in  the  week  that  followed,  all  his  everyday  plans  and 
worries  grew  trivial,  small  and  dropped  away.  For  Steve 
his  whole  life  had  all  at  once  become  terribly  plain  and 
simple. 

"Will  they  be  able  to  save  my  hand?" 

At  the  end  of  a  week  they  had  come  to  a  time  when  a 
decision  must  be  made.  A  slight  local  operation  would 
save  his  life  but  cripple  his  hand.  There  was  still  a 
chance,  a  slim  one,  that  without  operation  he  could  pull 
through;  and  Steve  fought  hard  to  take  this  chance;  but 
the  others  over-ruled  him.  He  felt  his  own  control  of  his 
life  slipping  suddenly  away.  He  could  hear  our  low 
voices  in  the  next  room,  and  we  seemed  mere  outsiders. 


BLIND  141 

Even  Lucy  was  like  that.   Into  his  mind  there  flashed  the 
thought, 

"She  has  the  power  to  decide.  Why  should  she  have 
it?  How  can  she  judge?  What  does  she  know  of  the 
hell  it  will  be  to  live  without  the  use  of  my  hand?" 

But  soon  after  this  she  came  into  the  ,room  and  he 
caught  a  glimpse  of  her  face,  white  and  strained.  He 
pitied  her,  and  then  he  began  to  feel  relaxed  and  drowsy 
— he  let  go.  They  operated  the  same  night.  Although 
he  was  soon  out  of  danger,  his  fever  continued  for 
several  weeks;  and  Steve,  who  had  never  been  sick  in  his 
life,  was  kept  to  his  bed — his  room  like  a  prison.  Surgery 
gone  forever !  At  lightning  speed  his  fancy  would  range 
out  over  the  world  of  science,  up  the  glorious  vistas  there 
into  that  bright  promised  land.  Ever  since  he  was  a  boy 
he  had  dreamed  of  surgery,  and  now  to>  have  to  give  it  up 
drove  the  poor  devil  nearly  insane.  One  afternoon  when 
I  was  there,  I  heard  a  thick  low  cry  from  his  room,  and 
went  in  and  found  him  on  his  bed,  his  face  and  hair  all 
wet  with  sweat,  teeth  clinched,  eyes  glaring  this  way  and 
that.  He  greeted  me  with  a  quick  hard  laugh  and  in 
incoherent  phrases  gave  me  a  glimpse  of  his  torment — 
the  strenuous  Yankee  stricken  down. 

In  vain  Lucy  racked  her  brains  to  find  some  other, 
work  for  him.  All  the  wider  field  of  his  science,  includ 
ing  those  big  social  dreams  with  which  Bannard  had 
once  summoned  us  both  into  the  service  of  mankind,  had 
been  to  Steve  mere  things  outside,  goals  and  purposes, 
all  very  fine  to  fill  in  one's  religion — but  not  for  one's 
job!  And  his  job  was  gone! 

"He's  so  horribly  kind  and  gentle!"  Lucy  exclaimed 
to  me  one  night.  "Poor  boy — and  so  bitter  underneath! 
This  feeling  of  his  for  his  surgery  has  all  the — oh  I  don't 
know  how  to  say  it — -all  New  England  back  of  it !  Steve 
could  have  easily  been  a  fanatic.  And  now  with  his  life 
taken  away  he'll  no  longer  be  himself.  He  will  try 


142  BLIND 

hard  enough — he'll  try  too  hard — don't  you  see? — that's 
just  the  kind  he  is.  But  unless  he  really  finds  something 
else  I'm  afraid  he'll  be — quite  a  different  man." 

As  she  looked  into  the  future,  there  was  something  in 
my  sister's  face  that  made  me  vow  we'd  get  this  right. 
We  had  long  consultations  with  Bannard,  and  each  of  us 
had  talks  with  Steve — but  at  first  without  a  sign  of  suc 
cess.  Although  he  insisted  on  getting  up  before  it  was 
time,  his  mental  condition  appeared  to  be  worse.  Still 
sunk  in  his  tragedy,  he  rebelled;  but  like  his  silent  old 
father  he  kept  his  bitterness  to  himself.  Doggedly  each 
morning  he  went  to  his  hospital.  He  tried  to  follow 
Bannard's  advice  and  take  up  the  administrative  work; 
but  in  his  depleted  condition  and  his  shaken  mental  state 
the  associations  of  the  place  made  him  look  older  every 
week.  So  consuming  were  the  memories  there.  Lucy 
still  hunted  desperately  for  other  kinds  of  work  for  him, 
and  suggested  this  and  that.  Her  failure  weighed  upon 
her,  till  at  last  worn  out  by  the  long  ordeal  she  went  to 
Aunt  Amelia's — "to  get  a  little  rest,"  she  said — in  reality 
to  go  over  it  all  with  our  resourceful  loving  old  aunt. 


2. 

I  did  not  care  in  her  absence  to  leave  Steve  too  much 
alone,  so  I  went  to  the  hospital  that  night  to  get  him 
to  walk  home  with  me.  I  had  not  seen  him  for  some  days, 
and  I  was  surprised  when  he  fell  in  at  once  with  my 
proposal;  and  as  we  walked  through  the  crowded  streets 
it  was  a  still  greater  surprise  to  find  in  his  talk  the  indi 
cations  of  a  most  significant  change. 

Steve  was  getting  out  of  himself.  He  had  entered  the 
hell  of  failure;  and  out  of  the  first  deep  black  hole  of 
loneliness  in  his  tragedy  he  had  come  to  a  wider  con 
sciousness  of  the  failures  upon  every  side.  He  began  to 
see  how  blind  he  had  been,  how  he  had  hardened  with 
success.  He  reminded  me  of  the  year  we  had  spent 


BLIND  143 

together  on  the  Lung  Block;  he  spoke  of  a  little  Galician 
Jew  who  had  hanged  himself  one  August  night,  of  a 
hopelessly  sodden  Irish  boy  with  an  irresistible  sense  of 
humor  who  had  been  known  as  Dopey  George,  and  of 
other  human  calamities  there.  He  had  become  with  his 
swift  rise  like  a  god  above  the  dreary  mass  of  common 
place  humanity;  but  he  felt  their  vast  reality  now,  for  he 
himself  was  one  of  them.  Hedging  him  in  on  every  side, 
they  seemed  to  fill  the  universe.  He  began  to-  get  their 
point  of  view — in  many  ways  so  much  more  human  and 
more  real  than  that  of  the  few  gods  above.  What  a  fool 
he  had  been  to  imagine  that  men  of  his  kind  could  cure 
the  world  by  an  operation,  so  to  speak,  to  cut  the  failure 
out  of  it!  On  the  other  hand,  he  had  little  hope  that  the 
masses  could  ever  lift  themselves.  It  was  as  though,  in  his 
dark  gloom,  India  and  China  had  breathed  on  him  from 
around  the  globe.  And  so  prodigious  was  the  weight  of 
inertia  he  felt  crushing  down,  that  his  fierce  tensity  was 
allayed.  He  had  begun  to  relax,  to  rest — and  a  certain: 
grim  deep  humor  had  crept  into  his  view  of  it  all.  How 
blindly  he  had  raced  along.  As  for  his  future,  he  did  not 
care.  A  new  job  was  bound  to  come.  That  had  lost  its 
importance.  For  the  moment  he  wanted  just  to  stop  and 
take  time  to  look  about  him. 

It  may  be  that  in  my  rush  of  relief  I  exaggerated  the 
change  in  Steve,  or  it  may  have  been  only  a  mood  that 
made  him  talk  as  he  did  that  night.  Still,  he  was  differ 
ent.  The  desperate  tensity  was  gone. 

On  reaching  home  that  evening,  we  found  OberookoflF 
there.  We  asked  him  to  stay  to  supper;  and  this  Russian 
friend  of  ours,  who  in  a  dumb  devoted  way  had  watched 
Steve  in  his  crisis,  now  glanced  at  him  from  time  to  time 
— and  noticing  at  once  the  change,  his  own  face  glowed 
with  happiness.  Outside,  a  snowstorm  had  begun.  It 
reminded  him  of  his  native  land,  and  he  spoke  of  his  love 
for  such  great  winds,  his  joy  in  the  feeling  of  powerless- 


144  BLIND 

ness  and  tiny  insignificance  when  blindly  driven  in  a 
storm. 

"And  human  life — it  is  like  that."  Here  he  rose 
abruptly  to  his  full  enormous  height.  "I  am  so  small,  I 
am  nothing!"  he  cried.  "And  life  is  a  blizzard — each 
piece  of  snow  is  my  blind  brother — small  as  I.  But  all 
of  us  together — ah! — we  are  making  clouds  of  white 
— between  the  earth  and  those  high  stars  that  nobody  can 
see  but  God!" 

Steve  watched  him  with  a  curious  smile.  Later,  when 
Oberookoff  had  gone,  he  took  up  a  book  and  began  to 
read — but  from  time  to  time,  idly  puffing  his  pipe,  he 
would  stare  into  the  coals  of  the  fire,  drowsy,  relaxed. 
fThe  room  was  warm. 

About  ten  o'clock  the  old-fashioned  door  bell  jangled 
loudly.  It  was  Dad.  Dining  out  with  Aunt  Fanny,  he 
had  left  early  to  come  here. 

"I  was  sitting  between  two  women  so  outrageously 
fat,"  he  declared,  "that  I  suddenly  yearned  for  a  quiet 
smoke  with  two  thin  men.  So  here  I  am." 

He  lit  a  cigar  and  settled  back.  But  his  genial  manner 
jwas  rather  forced;  and  as  he  sat  in  his  evening  clothes 
Jwith  his  well-fed  air  and  shrewd  keen  eyes,  I  thought  to 
myself,  "How  blind  he  is  to  everything  in  the  world  but 
success."  And,  remembering  my  talk  with  Steve,  I  could 
not  help  smiling  to  myself.  My  father  did  not  belong  here 
tonight.  Sitting  between  the  two  stout  dames,  after  din 
ing  long  and  well  he  should  have  stayed  with  their  hus 
bands  to  gossip  about  stocks  and  bonds.  He  had  nothing 
in  common  now  with  Steve.  Though  he  had  been  friendly 
and  kind  as  you  please  ever  since  the  tragedy,  he  had 
revealed  his  pity  for  Steve  as  a  man  who*  had  dropped 
out  of  the  race.  What  had  he  come  for  tonight?  No 
doubt  he  had  some  definite  aim,  some  practical  way  to 
put  Steve  on  his  feet  and  give  him  a  chance  to  go  limp 
ing  on.  Already  he  was  leading  up  to  it — and  Steve,  in 


BLIND  145 

the  strangely  quiet  mood  of  a  race-horse  who  has  decided 
just  to  wonder  at  life  for  a  while,  was  looking  at  Dad 
with  the  same  half-smile  with  which  he  had  watched 
Oberookoff.  Another  human  specimen. 

My  father  was  speaking  of  his  mills.  They  were  still 
expanding  so  rapidly,  it  was  hard  to  keep  up  with  their 
growth  and  head  off  certain  wild  ideas.  He  told  us  of  the 
things  he  was  doing  to  improve  conditions  there,  and 
ended  with  his  latest  plan — which  was  to  build  a  hospital 
to  handle  industrial  accidents.  Dad  leaned  forward  with 
a  smile. 

"Well?"  he  asked.    "Do  I  make  myself  clear?" 

"You  do." 

"How  about  it?" 

Steve  shook  his  head. 

"What's  the  matter?" 

"Nothing  at  all.  It's  mighty  decent  of  you — and 
kind." 

"Then  in  God's  name  why  not  take  me  up?  You  know 
I'll  give  you  a  free  hand.  You  can  build  it  any  way  you 
like " 

"Better  think  twice,  Steve,"  I  suggested.  "This  will 
be  a  very  big  thing.  To  take  care  of  all  the  thousands  of 
men  that  Dad  is  planning  to  mangle  and  maim " 

"Oh  you  go  to  the  devil,"  said  my  good-humored  par 
ent,  and  he  went  on  to  press  his  point.  On  account  of  the 
infernal  carelessness  of  employees,  there  was  to  be  a  tre 
mendous  future  for  hospital  work  of  just  this  kind ;  and 
the  man  who  got  in  at  the  start,  and  made  himself  an 
authority  on  industrial  accidents,  would  take  a  big  place 
in  the  national  life. 

"You're  right,"  said  Steve.  "It's  plain  as  day.  And  I 
don't  see  why  I'm  turning  it  down.  But  I  seem  to  be." 

Dad  shot  a  puzzled  look  at  him. 

"What  else  have  you  in  mind?"  he  asked. 

"I  don't  know  as  I  can  tell  you  yet." 


146  BLIND 

"All  right,  my  boy,  take  plenty  of  time — but  I'll  hold 
this  over  for  a  while." 

And  he  turned  the  conversation  to  Lucy  and  the  chil 
dren.  But  he  was  growing-  uncomfortable  now. 

"Am  I  feverish?"  he  demanded.  "Or  is  it  as  hot  in 
this  room  as  it  feels?" 

"No,  you're  not  feverish,"  said  Steve.  "The  fact  is, 
we've  a  furnace  man  who  loves  to  dream  he's  a  snowball 
in  hell — I  mean  a  snowflake  in  a  storm.  He  had  supper 
with  us  tonight,  and  forgot  to  close  the  furnace  draft." 

This  finished  my  father.  He  rose  to  leave,  with  an 
uneasy  glance  at  his  son-in-law.  We  chuckled  together 
when  he  was  gone. 

"How  could  I  tell  him,"  Steve  remarked,  "that  the 
career  I  had  in  mind  was  to  be  a  snowflake  for  awhile? 
Now  I'll  fix  that  furnace  and  then  I  move  we  go  to  bed." 


3. 

When  Lucy  came  back  the  following  day,  she  was  sur 
prised  as  I  had  been  at  the  apparent  change  in  her  hus 
band.  She  said  that  Aunt  Amelia  wanted  them  to  bring 
the  children  for  a  long  stay  at  Seven  Pines,  where  Steve 
could  have  an  abundance  of  time  to  get  back  his  strength 
and  think  things  out.  Lucy  felt  so  sure,  she  said,  that  he 
could  do  this  best  alone — but  Aunt  Amelia's  advice  was 
always  so  worth  listening  to.  She  always  had  such  good 
ideas — and  besides,  she  knew  people,  knew  Steve  so  well. 
As  Lucy  anxiously  enlarged  upon  the  advantages  of  the 
place,  Steve  went  over  and  kissed  her  and  said, 

"Been  pretty  tough,  hasn't  it,  little  wife?  No  need  to 
talk  of  this  any  more.  It's  a  mighty  good  plan.  Go  as 
soon  as  you  like." 

The  relief  and  delight  on  Lucy's  face  were  good  to  see. 
They  came  out  to  the  country  that  same  week,  and  from 
time  to  time  I  saw  them  here.  He  had  relapses,  days 
on  end  when  the  old  fierce  hunger  was  on  him  again— •« 


BLIND  147 

but  most  of  the  time  it  was  not  so.  Lucy  and  Steve  both 
loved  the  country,  and  over  hard  and  snowy  roads  they 
took  tramps  back  through  the  hills.  I  went  with  them 
several  times,  and  I  sat  in  at  long,  long  talks  in  the  even 
ing  with  our  wise  old  aunt. 

And  whether  the  first  suggestion  came  from  Lucy  or 
our  aunt,  or  from  Steve  himself,  I  do  not  know.  But  as 
the  winter  changed  to  spring  a  new  idea  took  root  in  his 
mind.  There  came  lazy  balmy  days,  reminders  of  his 
boyhood.  Men  and  boys  were  at  work  on  the  fields  or 
repairing  barns  and  fences.  Their  voices  and  their  dis 
tant  calls,  and  the  sound  of  hammers,  axes,  saws,  were  to 
be  heard  on  every  side.  What  a  contrast  to  the  work  in 
the  city.  The  birds  began  coming  up  from  the  South,  and 
great  patches  of  vivid  green  began  to  be  seen  in  the  mead 
ows.  Steve  could  feel  his  life  renewed.  What  strange 
deep  healing  power  old  Mother  Nature  still  possessed. 
How  much  better  than  all  the  drugs  and  the  glittering 
knives  of  the  surgeons. 

The  idea  soon  took  definite  form.  About  three  miles 
from  Seven  Pines,  on  the  side;  of  a  half  wooded  ridge 
there  was  an  abandoned  farm,  with  an  old  mill  and  dam 
on  the  creek  that  came  rushing  down  from  the  hills 
behind.  It  had  long  been  in  Steve's  family,  and  his  father 
gladly  gave  his  consent  that  it  should  be  developed  now 
into  a  sanitarium.  Steve  went  to  Bannard  in  New  York, 
who  gave  his  warm  approval.  For  serious  surgical  cases, 
he  said,  on  account  of  Steve's  long  experience  his  place 
would  be  a  godsend  to  the  surgeons  of  New  York. 

I  sometimes  feel  that  over  our  country  hovers  a  great 
creature,  spare  and  lean,  with  quivering  wings,  who 
might  be  called  the  God  of  Speed.  If  such  there  be,  a 
grim  delight  would  have  come  in  his  great  dark  gleam 
ing  eyes,  had  he  looked  down  on  Seven  Pines.  For  now, 
in  spite  of  his  deep  change,  this  strenuous  Yankee  sur 
geon,  who  had  left  the  fever  and  speed  of  the  town  for 


148  BLIND 

the  peace  of  country  life,  began  to  regather  his  energies, 
speed  up  again  and  narrow  down !  He  was  studying  sani 
tariums,  making  frequent  flying  trips  to  study  them  bet 
ter  at  first  hand.  Then  with  the  eager  help  and  advice  of 
Lucy  and  Aunt  Amelia,  the  plans  he  made  were  changed 
and  changed.  Soon  the  work  was  under  way,  and  Steve 
was  heartily  cursing  the  calm  deliberation  of  the  masons 
and  the  carpenters.  He  plunged  into  a  thousand  details, 
and  through  them  all  he  drove  his  way,  unregenerate, 
zealous  as  before ! 

And  yet  there  was  a  difference.  Life  was  deeper,  sim 
pler  now.  Instead  of  rushing  about  in  town  from  one  dis 
ease  to  another,  here  he  was  working  out  of  doors,  upon 
the  house  or  about  the  grounds.  He  regained  his  health 
of  body  and  soul.  Oberookoff  had  been  sent  for,  and  he 
was  enchanted  with  the  spot.  With  Steve  he  worked  from 
dawn  until  dark,  and  remained  serenely  untroubled  by 
the  lack  of  progress  that  he  made.  The  idea  of  the  work 
was  what  appealed. 

"We  shall  give  to  sick  people  God's  work  out  of  doors 
«— and  they  shall  be  well!"  he  told  me.  For  these  sick 
brothers  of  the  future  he  was  constantly  thinking  up  jobs. 
To  rebuild  for  them  the  saw-mill  was  OberookofFs  own 
idea.  "There  they  shall  saw  the  logs,"  he  declared,  "and 
daily  swallow  fresh  the  air,  and  the  smell  of  the  logs, 
and  the  beautiful  noises  from  the  stream." 

He  worked  happily  at  the  little  old  mill.  He  had  a 
fearful  tussle  with  the  broken  water  wheel;  more  than 
once  it  hurled  him  into  the  pond.  But  he  was  unruffled. 
Never  mind.  The  idea  had  been  started,  and  we  should 
see!  Oberookoff  liked  the  workmen  here.  They  were  so 
ready  to  stop  work  and  enter  into  long  talks  with  him. 
And  these  fellows  fed  him  with  the  most  outrageous  lies. 
He  told  them  that  for  several  years  he  had  been  writing 
constantly  to  his  countryman,  "Mister  Tolstoy,"  in  order 
that  through  Tolstoy's  pen  Russia  might  learn  the  splen- 


BLIND  149 

clid  truth  about  life  in  America.  This  set  their  imagina 
tions  to  work  on  tales  to  which  he  listened  with  an  eager 
brotherly  smile.  One  teamster  told  him  solemnly  that  he 
never  beat  his  horses  and  that  he  gave  each  animal  forty 
quarts  of  oats  a  day.  Whereupon  Oberookoff  sat  down 
in  delight  and  wrote, 

"Dear  Mister  Tolstoy:  America  is  a  wonderful  land! 
Here  all  the  men  are  kind  to  their  beasts!" 

It  was  Steve  who  told  me  this  incident.  He  now  called 
Oberookoff  "Doc,"  and  stoutly  declared  that  the  Rus 
sian  would  prove  a  treasure  as  a  guide  and  friend  for 
convalescents  here. 

"And  more  than  that,"  he  added.  "Our  friend  the  Doc, 
for  all  his  blunders,  has  a  lot  of  truth  in  him;  and  it's  just 
the  kind  of  truth  we  need  for  the  Tired  Business  Man. 
We  think  ourselves  so  practical — but  what  ridiculous  lives 
we  lead." 

Yes,  Steve  had  changed.  He  could  look  back  with  Lucy 
now  and  realize  the  madness  of  the  years  he  had  left 
behind.  The  old  causes  of  discord  between  them  were 
gone.  There  was  a  good  school  for  Tommy  nearby ;  and 
moreover,  Steve  had  time  for  his  son,  and  he  drew  close 
again  to  his  wife.  Here  she  could  enter  into  his  work.  It 
was  so  much  broader  than  surgery ;  and,  together  with  the 
humanity  gained  in  the  recent  crisis,  it  was  making  him 
more  human  and  kind.  For  after  the  first  strenuous  rush 
the  place  took  on  a  quiet  air.  He  had  to  deal  with  conva 
lescents  for  whom  the  really  critical  work  had  already 
been  done  with  the  knife.  It  was  not  until  years  later 
that  he  went  in  for  nerve  complaints  and  built  his  national 
reputation.  In  the  beginning  his  work  was  small. 

And  while  I  liked  to  come  out  to  his  home  and  rest 
from  my  own  mad  life  in  town,  half  consciously  I  looked 
on  his  work  as  pretty  small  potatoes,  on  Steve  himself  as 
a  "has  been/'  a  chap  who  had  dropped  out  of  the  game. 


CHAPTER  IX 
1. 

FOR  now  I  myself,  after  many  years  with  little  progress 
in  my  work,  had  taken  a  spurt  and  was  rapidly  rising  to 
fill  my  little  tinsel  place  in  that  glittering  world,  the 
theatre.  Since  my  labor  play  I  had  written  others,  pos 
sibly  fifteen  in  all.  Five  of  them  had  been  produced,  and 
three  had  been  successful.  I  had  left  my  downtown  rooms 
and  taken  a  small  apartment  high  up  in  an  old  brick  build 
ing  over  on  Fifty-Ninth  Street,  looking  down  into  the 
Park.  There  a  Jap  looked  after  me.  I  was  constantly 
dining  out.  Tall  and  thin,  a  bit  more  stooped,  mood 
often  "blue,"  I  keenly  enjoyed  my  life,  nevertheless;  and 
out  of  my  explorations,  ideas  for  plays  or  single  scenes 
and  character  bits  were  constantly  coming  up  in  my  mind. 

Although  the  heaving  under-world  had  lost  its  novelty 
for  me,  I  still  called  myself  a  Red,  contributed  to  radical 
movements  and  took  an  interest  in  strikes.  This  was  due, 
perhaps  more  than  I  realized,  to  my  cousin  Dorothy.  For 
turning  over  and  over  in  her  extremely  attractive  young 
head  the  ideas  I  had  given  her,  on  leaving  college  at 
twenty-one  Dorothy  had  surprised  us  by  resolutely  tak 
ing  a  job  in  a  big  New  Jersey  mill  town  notorious  for  its 
radicals. 

"I've  thought  it  all  out  thoroughly,"  she  said,  "and  I've 
decided  that  I  need  something  really  hard — and  ugly  even. 
I  think  a  girl  ought  to  know  how  it  feels  to  live  like  that 
I  don't  suppose  I'll  be  much  use,  but  I  bet  I'll  learn  an 
awful  lot,  and  I  mean  to  help  as  much  as  I  can." 

It  was  quite  a  shock  to  her  mother  at  first,  but  she  made 
a  success  of  it  from  the  start.  In  the  little  "settlement 

150 


BLIND  151 

house"  she  had  charge  of  the  girls'  clubs.  By  years  of 
work  she  had  made  herself  a  really  fine  pianist — and  this 
helped;  for  the  girls  in  her  clubs  were  Italians,  French, 
Hungarians  and  Austrian-Poles.  They  could  sit  by  the 
hour  hearing  her  play,  and  almost  every  evening  she 
would  play  for  them  to  dance.  At  times  she  had  long  talks 
with  them.  I  was  one  of  her  principal  backers,  and  going 
out  to  see  her  there  I  picked  up  the  story  for  'The 
Woman  in  The  Shawl" — a  play  in  which  I  tried  to  show 
a  Sicilian  girl  reaching  New  York,  changing  into  Amer 
ican  clothes  and  assuming  a  veneer  of  American  talk  and 
manners,  under  which  however  still  ran  the  hot  Sicilian 
blood ;  and  this  blood  at  the  proper  time  boiling  into  action 
gave  me  such  a  big  third  act  that  the  piece  had  a  successful 
run.  I  had  promised  my  cousin  in  case  of  success  to  give 
half  the  proceeds  to  her  work.  Ruefully  I  stuck  to  my  bar 
gain,  and  her  settlement  benefited  to  the  extent  of  fifteen 
thousand  dollars.  Feeling  as  though  I  owned  the  place,  I 
still  kept  up  my  visits  there,  and  as  time  went  on  I  began 
to  meet  various  wild  young  foreigners  who  seemed  to  be 
more  than  determined  to  blow  the  whole  world  to  smither 
eens,  but  who  in  the  meantime  were  ready  enough  to  drop 
In  at  Dorothy's  club  for  a  dance.  She  beamed  on  them  in 
a  friendly  way  and  went  serenely  on  with  her  work.  They 
considered  her  "bourgeois,"  and  they  were  right;  but  her 
influence  steadily  increased — for  in  addition  to  giving  her 
girls  a  good  time  she  was  always  glad  to  talk  things 
out  and  get  their  views,  not  only  about  their  jobs  in  the 
mills  but  about  their  many  love  affairs.  She  was  con 
stantly  helping  girls  who  were  sick. 

"The  conditions  in  these  mills  are  simply  outrageous !" 
she  told  me. 

When  she  had  been  there  about  three  years,  a  strike 
broke  out  in  the  mill  town.  In  a  week  it  had  grown  so  big 
that  a  national  organization,  led  largely  by  my  former 
friends  from  the  mines  in  Colorado,  considered  this  a 


152  BLIND 

promising  place  for  breaking  into  the  eastern  field.  They 
arrived  in  force  and  directed  the  struggle  with  such  suc 
cess  that  it  was  soon  being  featured  high  in  the  papers. 
The  family  was  at  once  alarmed  on  Dorothy's  account, 
and  despite  my  protestations  I  was  sent  to  try  to  induce 
her  to  drop  her  work  for  the  time  and  come  home.  But  I 
did  nothing  of  the  kind.  I  found  the  small  club-house 
transformed,  crowded  with  long  tables  and  troops  of 
merry  children.  Dorothy  with  her  sleeves  rolled  up  was 
helping  her  chief  and  one  other  woman  to  manage  a  soup 
kitchen  there.  I  went  with  her  to  a  great  out-of-door 
meeting  and  saw  a  whole  hillside  vivid  and  gay  with  the 
bright  colored  clothes  of  some  thirty  thousand  men  and 
women  and  children,  listening  to  the  speakers  who  from 
a  high  platform  shouted  down  their  prophecies  of  a  new 
freedom  on  the  earth.  I  stayed  over  night;  and  in  the 
dawn,  with  a  light  rain  drizzling  down,  I  watched  the 
pickets  along  the  mills  and  witnessed  a  few  scuffles 
between  them  and  the  militia.  I  saw  one  lad  who  shouted 
"Scab"  knocked  down  by  the  butt  end  of  a  rifle.  Blood 
oozed  slowly  from  over  one  ear.  From  there  I  went  to 
Dorothy's  place  and  breakfasted  with  two  hundred  kids. 
Then  I  took  the  train  to  New  York  and  telephoned  Aunt 
Amelia  that  there  was  nothing  to  worry  about. 

"She  is  being  quite  sensible/'  I  said,  "and  the  work  she 
is  doing  is  perfectly  safe." 

I  sat  down  in  my  studio  and  tried  to  go  on  with  the  sec 
ond  act  of  a  play  called,  "His  Impossible  Wife."  But  I 
could  not  work.  In  a  few  days  Dorothy  telephoned  me  to 
come  back,  and  I  was  soon  drawn  into  preparations  for 
an  enormous  pageant  which  they  planned  to  give  in  New 
York.  So  fundamentally  deep  and  true  was  their  dra 
matic  instinct,  that  in  rehearsing  I  soon  found  it  was  bet 
ter  not  to  interfere,  but  to  let  them  work  out  in  their  own 
way  the  big  mass  scenes  depicting  their  strike.  We  had 


BLIND  153 

hired  the  Garden  in  New  York.  It  held  twenty  thousand 
people,  and  the  expenses  were  so  high  that  unless  we  could 
pack  the  house  there  would  be  a  heavy  money  loss.  The 
arrangements  seemed  to  have  no  end.  Many  committees 
were  organized,  made  up  for  the  most  part  of  foreign  rad 
icals  in  New  York.  Chaos  seemed  to  reign  in  all.  Money 
was  spent  like  water — quarrels  raged — the  time  was  short. 

Our  two  thousand  actors  arrived  in  town  just  in  time 
for  a  last  rehearsal.  It  was  a  tumultuous  affair.  Masses 
of  men  and  women  and  children,  singing  dirges  and 
strange  songs  in  foreign  tongues  about  the  Great  Revolu 
tion,  came  marching  down  the  long  middle  aisle,  ascended 
the  big  platform  with  a  huge  drop  curtain  behind  to  rep 
resent  the  jail-like  mills,  and  there  they  simply  did  again 
what  they  were  doing  day  by  day  in  the  stark  drama  of 
their  strike.  They  did  not  act,  they  simply  lived.  The  per 
formance  that  night  was  a  great  success.  I  remember  the 
restless  sea  of  faces  filling  the  dim  arena  and  the  galleries 
lip  to  the  roof.  Red  flags  of  all  countries  waving  them 
A  babel  of  voices  in  many  tongues — wild  cheering,  wave 
on  wave  of  it,  till  the  air  quivered  with  the  sound. 

Dorothy  sat  by  my  side.  She  barely  spoke.  Her  look 
was  fixed,  her  color  high;  and  as  those  deeply  stirring 
songs,  French,  Polish  and  Italian,  rose  in  a  weird  minor 
key  filling  the  tremendous  hall,  her  face  contracted  and  I 
felt  the  slowly  tightening  clutch  of  her  hand.  It  grew  cold 
in  mine — and  I  wished  I  were  still  young  enough  to  feel 
this  so  intensely. 

But  to  that  dramatic  night  there  was  a  dismal  after 
math.  For  expenses  had  mounted  up  so  high  that  our  net 
profit  was  almost  nil;  and  when  it  was  handed  over  to 
the  strike  committee,  there  was  a  fearful  whoop-dy-do. 
This  was  what  came  of  allowing  the  "bourgeois  intellig- 
gentzia"  to  have  any  part  in  the  sacred  war  being  waged 
by  the  proletariat!  As  the  son  of  a  well-known  million- 


154  BLIND 

aire,  I  came  in  for  the  greatest  share  of  the  yowl.  And 
having  by  now  expended  a  good  deal  of  time  and  money, 
I  dropped  out  of  the  strike  in  disgust  and  went  on  about 
my  business. 

One  night  some  two  weeks  later  Dorothy  came  to  my 
rooms. 

"Larry,  tell  me  what  I  can  do.  The  strike  is  almost 
lost,"  she  said.  She  had  changed  to  a  startling  degree, 
grown  pale  and  thin  in  a  losing  fight.  She  told  how  the 
affairs  of  the  strikers  had  rapidly  gone  from  bad  to  worse. 

"There  were  nearly  five  hundred  children  today — and 
barely  a  single  one  of  them  laughed.  And  they've  got  to 
be  fed,  you  know — and  somehow  the  strike  has  got  to  be 
won !  I've  never  been  good  at  economics,  but  the  simple 
human  truth  about  this  fight  is  clear  as  day !  Those  peo 
ple  have  been  worked  too  hard  and  paid  too  little !  And 
it's  wrong !" 

Suddenly  her  look  met  mine ;  and  as  though  she  read 
my  feeling  that  the  strike  was  hopeless  now,  into  her 
angry  bright  blue  eyes  came  a  flash  of  reproach  that 
seemed  to  say : 

"You  got  me  into  this — long  ago!  Why  can't  you  be 
as  young  as  I  ?  Why  can't  you  still  be  angry?" 

"What  do  you  want  me  to  do?"  I  asked. 

"Help  them— us!" 

"I'll  do  what  I  can.  But  if  you're  still  to  be  any  use 
in  this  fight,  the  first  thing  for  you  to  do  is  to  realize  it 
has  grown  so  big  that  you  can't  affect  it  very  much  one 
way  or  the  other.  Stick  to  your  job — those  five  hundred 
children.  There  will  probably  be  a  thousand  soon,  and 
your  job  is  to  feed  them.  Stop  worrying  over  getting  the 
food.  I'll  get  it — I'll  raise  the  money  here.  Those  kids, 
no  matter  how  many  there  be,  will  be  fed  each  day  right 
through  to  the  end — that  is,  they  will  be  if  you  keep 
yourself  in  hand,  my  dear." 

As  I  put  my  hand  on  her  small  shoulder,  I  could  feel 
her  trembling  stop. 


BLIND  155 

"You're  right,  Larry — you're  perfectly  right.  I'll  stick 
to  that — and— thank  you." 

"It's  nine  o'clock.  Have  you  had  any  supper?" 

"No " 

"Let's  have  some." 

After  that,  I  took  her  in  a  hansom  for  an  hour's  'drive 
In  the  park,  where  a  light  soft  rain  was  falling  and  the 
lights  from  the  great  hotels  glimmered  from  the  misty 
heights.  And  we  planned  out  the  work  to  be  done  and 
then  talked  of  ourselves  for  a  while — what  each  of  us 
wanted  most  in  life.  When  I  left  her  at  the  ferry  boat — 
for  she  would  not  let  me  take  her  back — I  wished  again 
that  I  were  young. 

"Goodnight,  Larry  "dear." 

"Goodnight.    Good  luck." 

In  the  weeks  that  followed,  in  spite  of  what  I  could  do 
to  help  I  felt  the  strain  on  her  tighten  each  day,  as  the 
number  of  children  grew  and  grew,  and  gloom  and  despair 
spread  through  the  town.  She  stuck  grimly  to  her  post. 
But  when  the  strike  ended  in  defeat,  and  her  working 
girls'  club  closed  down,  Dorothy  had  a  severe  collapse  and 
went  home  to  Seven  Pines  to  rest. 

She  was  months  in  getting  back  her  strength.  More 
over,  her  mother  was  growing  old.  And  because,  for  all 
her  new  ideas,  Dorothy  was  at  bottom  a  personal  home- 
loving  soul,  she  put  off  getting  a  new  job  until  the  life  at 
Seven  Pines  had  a  hold  on  her  that  was  hard  to  break. 

"At  her  age,"  said  Aunt  Amelia,  "three  solid  years  of 
that  life  is  enough.  She's  only  a  girl  of  twenty-four,  and 
she  ought  to  be  having  a  good  time." 

So  she  packed  her  off  on  visits  to  college  friends,  both 
East  and  West,  and  out  to  Ed  on  his  ranch  in  Nebraska 
and  to  the  old  family  home  in  the  big  college  town  in  Wis 
consin.  And  Dorothy  did  have  a  good  time — for  she 
was  quite  capable  still  of  being  the  life  of  a  party.  Gayly 
and  intensely,  too,  she  went  through  several  affairs  that 
nearly  ended  in  engagements — but  not  quite.  For  the 


156  BLIND 

years  in  that  New  Jersey  town  had  left  their  mark.  She 
still  wanted  a  job  and  proposed  to  get  it.  Only — it  was 
hard  to  choose.  Life  was  so  exceedingly  pleasant,  her 
days  were  all  so  crowded  now.  Often  at  first  she  came 
to  New  York  and  I  gladly  took  her  on  sprees  as  of  yore 
— as  a  rule  to  the  opera  or  a  play,  but  again  we  went 
to  meetings  in  Cooper  Union  or  Carnegie  Hall  and  heard 
the  wrongs  of  the  masses  discussed;  and  once  we  spent 
an  April  day  out  on  Ellis  Island  watching  ten  thousand 
immigrants  enter  into  this  promised  land. 

There  are  many  such  girls  and  women  about.  They  are 
such  blithely  personal  souls,  you  never  suspect  what  they 
have  been — until  suddenly  in  this  shifting  changing 
national  panorama  there  comes  a  strike,  a  flying  machine, 
a  farmers'  rising  against  the  Trusts,  or  some  other  little 
thing  like  that — and  then  you  are  dumbfounded  at  the 
views  so  stoutly  expressed  by  your  demure  delightful 
friend.  She  smiles  at  your  astonishment  and  explains  that 
she  herself  once  went  through  a  strike  and  was  sent  to 
jail — or  that  she  spent  a  year  or  two  as  assistant  to  a  chap 
who  was  trying  to  make  a  flying  machine — or  that  as  a 
school  teacher  in  Kansas  she  led  a  parade  of  farmers  once 
under  the  slogan,  "Bust  the  Trusts !"  She  looks  like  a  per* 
feet  lady;  but  in  these  days  when  women  at  last  have  bul 
lied  the  men  into  letting  them  vote,  many  a  staunch  con* 
servative  old  crook  of  a  politician,  who  beams  upon  her 
with  approval  as  she  demurely  enters  the  polls,  would 
start  back  in  amazed  disgust  could  he  see  how  she  marks 
her  ballot  inside. 

My  cousin  Dorothy  was  like  that. 


2. 

But  I  did  not  see  so  much  of  her  now.  For  I  was  writ 
ing  plays  again — in  a  life  still  filled  with  fascination,  tense, 
uneven — ups  and  downs.  Long  times  of  easy  living,  writ 
ing — then  with  a  rush  into  rehearsal  and  a  swiftly  deepen- 


BLIND  157 

ing  strain.  And  so  engrossed  did  I  become  in  my  narrow 
ing  little  world,  that  I  was  barely  conscious  of  how  I 
dropped  my  former  friends.  With  the  warm  radical  faith 
of  my  youth  I  did  what  so  many  of  my  busy  countrymen 
did  with  their  religion.  They  did  not  become  atheists — 
they  simply  forgot  to  go  to  church.  I  did  not  become  con 
servative — I  simply  forgot  to  go  down  to  the  "slums."  I 
was  too  busy.  Ideas  and  scenes  and  characters  kept 
crowding  into  my  fertile  brain,  enough  for  a  dozen  plays 
ahead.  The  managers  kept  pushing  me.  I  was  writing  two 
or  three  plays  a  year — and  the  fact,  that  for  every  success 
I  had  at  least  two  failures,  only  increased  my  impatient 
zeal.  I  was  far  from  satisfied  with  my  work.  Good  spots 
in  it  here  and  there,  but  on  the  whole  so  far  below  the 
European  standard  that  at  times  I  was  ashamed  of  the 
stuff  which  came  out  of  rehearsal. 

But  if  I  was  humble  about  my  work,  it  was  not  so  in 
the  life  I  led.  For  I  had  become  in  the  great  panorama 
one  of  those  innumerable  and  constantly  emerging  gods 
whom  the  people  delight  to  honor.  Even  now  when  I  am 
old  and  blind,  and  alone  in  the  silent  creaky  night  in  this 
dearly  haunted  old  home  of  my  boyhood — (observe  the 
pathos  of  the  above,  for  I  was  always  so  good  at  that) — 
I  redden  a  bit  as  I  look  back  to  those  years  when  I  was 
flattered  all  up  and  down  the  Avenue.  For  my  stepmother 
had  become  more  smilingly  gracious  than  ever  before  At 
forty-two,  Aunt  Fanny  had  kept  her  beauty  to  such  a 
degree  that,  together  with  her  husband's  money  and  her 
own  good-humor  and  tact,  it  had  landed  her  very  high 
indeed  in  that  magic  vaudeville  circuit  known  as  New- 
port-and-New  York.  Into  this  life  she  launched  me  then; 
and  as  I  went  about  to  dinners,  dances  and  week-ends,  in 
the  course  of  time  I  was  more  and  more  pleased  to  play 
the  dark  mvsterious  role  of  the  all-knowing  dramatist  who 
with  a  partly  pitying  but  still  more  derisive  smile  looks 
down  upon  this  fevered  life,  these  tragedies  and  come- 


158  BLIND 

dies,  all  of  which  he  knows  so  well.  In  fact,  I  got  myself 
into  a  state  where  even  Aunt  Fanny  frowned  a  bit.  She 
hinted  that  I  was  getting  spoiled  and  that  I  needed  fresh 
ening  up,  and  she  urged  upon  me  a  young  wife  and 
babies  howling  in  the  night. 

Each  time  she  tried  to  marry  me  off,  I  smilingly  shook 
my  wise  old  head.  But  I  did  marry,  all  the  same — though 
not  in  the  way  that  she  had  planned.  And  my  marriage, 
though  a  brief  affair,  gave  me  such  a  shock  of  disgust — 
with  my  wife  and  still  more  with  myself — that  it  did  for 
me  what  a  certain  nasty  little  germ  had  once  done  for  poor 
old  Steve. 

Her  stage  name  was  Mabel  Grey,  and  we  came  together 
at  one  of  those  times  when  a  score  of  people,  half  mad  at 
the  start  and  growing  madder  every  day,  rehearse  a  piece 
for  the  theatre  and  do  their  worst  to  "put  it  across."  The 
play  was  His  Impossible  Wife.  I  had  been  writing  it  at 
the  time  of  the  big  strike  two  years  before.  It  was  the 
common  story  of  the  self-made  American  who  in  his 
youth,  while  he  is  still  a  miner  or  a  butcher,  a  puddler  in  a 
steel  mill  or  something  equally  grimy  and  rough,  marries 
a  cook  in  a  mining  camp  or  a  girl  in  a  steam  laundry. 
Later  he  climbs  the  American  ladder.  What  then  becomes 
of  the  wife  at  his  side?  A  number  of  things  can  happen. 
First — she  is  so  quick  and  smart  that  she  keeps  pace  with 
her  husband  and,  though  ponderous  ladies  of  wealth  may 
frown  or  sneer  at  first  at  her  breaks,  she  worsts  them  in 
each  tussle  and  emerges  triumphant  at  the  top.  Second- 
she  is  impossible.  With  no  more  work  for  her  big  red 
hands,  she  sits  around  and  eats  too  much,  grows  heavy 
and  dull.  Her  hats  are  a  joke.  Her  children  go  away  to 
school,  and  when  they  come  home  they're  ashamed  of 
"ma."  Her  husband's  new  friends  and  their  wives  smile 
at  her  discreetly.  She  glowers  back,  and  to  herself  rips 
out  fine  old  Yankee  oaths  or  folds  her  hands  in  mute 
despair. 


BLIND  159 

Her  husband  then  does  one  of  three  things.  Denoue 
ment  one — he  is  staunch  and  true.  For  her  sake  he  gives 
up  the  frivolous  world  and  sits  at  home  in  his  slippers 
with  "ma,"  drunk  or  sober.  I  knew  a  manufacturer 
whose  wife  had  become  a  perfect  old  souse,  but  when  a 
jovial  friend  of  his  suggested  a  charming  young  mistress 
instead,  he  answered. 

"No,  I'll  stick  to  my  wife.  That  old  bitch  stood 
by  me  when  I  was  at  the  bottom,  and  I  propose  to  stand 
by  her  now."  And  he  gloomily  added,  "Right  into  the 
coffin." 

But  if  such  bright  and  appealing  devotion  is  often  seen 
in  our  national  show,  there  are  still  two  other  denouements 
as  common.  Denouement  two — the  man  takes  up  with  one 
fluffy  young  female  after  another,  pays  their  rent  and  buys 
them  pearls  and  evening  clothes  and  satin  slippers — leads 
a  devil  of  a  life.  Wife  knows  it,  grins  and  bears  it,  and 
settles  heavily  into  her  grave.  Denouement  three — the 
husband  stays  perfectly  respectable.  He  forsakes  the  Cath 
olic  faith,  becomes  a  serious  vestryman  in  a  fashionable 
Episcopal  church,  meets  a  delightful  young  woman  there, 
well  groomed,  clever  and  discreet,  and  after  various  talks 
and  scenes,  in  her  home,  in  his  own  and  later  in  court, 
leads  her  solemnly  to  the  altar  and  takes  her  for  better  or 
for  worse — while  his  original  wife  is  left,  with  a  gener 
ous  alimony,  comfortably  to  meditate  on  the  immortality 
of  man. 

This  last  plot  was  the  one  I  selected.  Although  I  was 
quite  well  aware  of  its  disadvantages — grim,  no  happy 
ending,  immoral,  no  young  lovers — in  fact,  almost  sure  to 
fail — in  one  of  my  lofty  artist  moods  I  heroically  chose 
this  story  as  the  most  powerful  of  the  lot.  I  went  at  it 
hard.  Each  time  I  grew  stale,  I  put  it  aside.  I  re-wrote  the 
piece  again  and  again,  I  worked  my  big  scenes  up  too  high 
and  then  brought  them  sternly  down.  This  should  be  real 
or  nothing!  This  should  be  one  honest  picture  of  our  cha- 


160  BLIND 

otic  national  life  from  the  bottom  right  up  to  the  top.  But 
simple.  No  ranting — plenty  of  laughs  but  none  of  them 
forced — and  absolute  justice  to  all  involved.  No  vam 
pire  stuff  for  the  second  wife,  no  martyr's  halo  for  the 
first.  At  last  with  a  heroic  take-it-or-leave-it  scowl  on 
my  face  I  gave  the  'script  to  my  manager.  He  read  it 
and  talked  to  me  like  a  son.  But  I  held  out  so  doggedly 
for  the  piece  just  as  it  was — no  monkeying  with  it,  under 
stand  ! — that  with  a  curious  smiling  light  in  his  large  gray 
and  yellow  eyes,  he  munched  his  cigar  and  said  to  me, 

"All  right,  Larry,  I'll  take  a  chance.  Got  anyone  yet  in 
your  mind  for  the  girl  ?" 

"She  isn't  a  girl !"  I  shot  back  at  him,  my  suspicions 
instantly  aroused.  "She's  a  big  heavy  woman  of  forty- 
five.  Her  stage  business  is  to  sigh,  clear  her  throat  and 
fold  her  hands  on  her  stomach.  Her  corsets  don't  fit 
her." 

"Christ,"  he  murmured  sadly,  "what  a  frost  this  piece 
will  be." 

"Then  why  put  it  on?"  I  retorted.  "Let  me  try  it 
somewhere  else !"  Up  went  his  hand. 

"Look  here,  son — how  about  this?  Put  a  little  more 
speed  in  your  husband.  Get  him  up  to  the  top  at  thirty- 
five,  and  let  his  wife  be  thirty." 

"No!" 

"We're  a  speedy  country,  boy.  You  can  see  just  such 
fellahs  all  about.  I  got  up  myself  at  thirty-five."  His  look 
grew  pathetic.  "And  let  me  tell  you,  Larry,  that  when  I 
put  on  this  piece  my  old  woman  will  yowl  like  a  pirate. 
The  wife  is  real  enough — don't  worry.  And  they're  just 
as  real  at  thirty  as  they  are  at  forty-five." 

In  the  end  he  carried  his  point.  He  even  brought  me 
to  admit  that  the  wife  was  rather  overdone.  In  my  fear 
of  making  her  attractive  I  had  erred  on  the  other  side. 

"As  you've  got  her  now,  she's  a  laugh,"  he  said.  "And 
the  laughs  will  kill  the  piece." 

So  I  agreed.  A  woman  of  thirty,  fairly  large,  but  neatly 


BLIND  161 

dressed  and  obviously  one  who  still  had  good  looks  enough 
if  only  she  knew  how  to  bring  them  out.  But  when  in  a 
reflective  tone  he  suggested  Mabel  Grey  for  the  part, 
instantly  I  balked  again. 

"Mabel  Grey?  She's  twenty-two!  Gorgeous  figure — 
little  feet — cheeks  like  roses — big  blue  eyes " 

"Aw  forget  'em,"  he  replied.  "She  can  make  'em  any 
thing  you  like.  Same  way  with  her  face.  As  for  her  feet, 
you're  blind,  my  son — her  shoes  are  so  tight  she  can 
hardly  walk.  And  as  for  her  figure,  ain't  there  impos 
sible  wives  enough  like  her?  She  aint  petite — she's  big — • 
de  luxe.  And  when  she  lets  out  her  corsets " 

"But  she  won't!"  I  almost  shouted.  "And  she  won't 
make  up  her  face  and  eyes  to  look  the  part !" 

"Why  won't  she  ?"  he  snapped  back  at  me.  "What  is 
she  but  an  unknown  kid  ?  Never  been  in  New  York  till  a 
month  ago.  And  when  I  tell  her,  "Mabel — I've  got  a  big 
star  part  for  you* — she'll  do  anything  for  the  chance.  If 
she  don't  I'll  know  the  reason  why.  And  besides/'  he 
added  casually,  "in  your  first  act  she's  twenty-three.  Let 
her  show  herself  as  God  made  her  then,  and  she'll  be  meek 
and  fat  as  a  lamb  all  the  way  through  the  rest  of  the 
piece." 

Rather  glumly  I  agreed  that  at  least  we  should  try 
Mabel  out. 


3. 

And  in  my  talk  with  her  that  week,  my  doubts  began 
to  drop  away.  For  Mabel  was  such  a  radiant  kid,  so 
blithely  eager  to  play  the  part,  so  grateful  to  me  for  choos 
ing  her.  In  a  month  we  were  on  intimate  terms. 

"Believe  me,  Larry,  please !"  she  implored.  "I  was  born 
in  Colorado — I  know  how  big  and  true  to  life  this  piece  of 
yours  is — and  to  put  it  over  I'll  do  simply  anything !  Just 
look  at  my  eyes  and  mouth  and  nose,  or  any  other  part  of 
me,  and  tell  me  what  it  is  you  want — and  I'll  do  anything 
on  earth !  Only  please,  please  believe  in  me !" 


162  BLIND 

I  took  her  often  out  to  dine  and  for  long  rides  on  sum 
mer  evenings.  Far  up  the  Sound  on  a  strip  of  beach  she 
cooked  a  supper  for  me  one  night.  And  after  a  delicious 
meal  she  lay  back  upon  the  sand,  scowled  reflectively  at 
the  stars  over  her  small  cigarette,  and  talked  about  "our 
chances" — discussed  our  play,  her  faith  in  it,  her  knowl 
edge  of  Colorado  life  where  our  man  and  his  impossible 
wife  had  met  and  loved  and  married.  The  wife  was  a 
cook  in  a  mining  camp,  and  so  we  talked  about  cooks  fo'r 
awhile.  Very  sensibly  Mabel  demanded  to  know  what  it 
was  people  thought  so  comic  in  cooks.  They  had  the 
power  of  life  or  death  over  all  the  rest  of  us,  didn't  they? 
As  a  little  girl  in  Colorado  she  had  driven  about  with  her 
father,  who  was  a  country  doctor;  and  in  lonely  mountain 
cabins,  she  had  seen  things  that  would  turn  your  hair. 
"Such  meals!  Such  grease!  But  how  could  you  blame 
them?  Life  was  a  pretty  stiff  proposition  for  a  woman 
with  children  there !"  She  told  of  one  young  widow  who 
to  save  her  baby's  life  had  fetched  a  cow  from  the  next 
ranch,  tramping  twenty-four  miles  in  the  rain.  She  had 
caught  pneumonia  and  nearly  died. 

"But  she  didn't,  she  lived,  and  so  did  her  baby.  And 
you  know,  Larry,  the  more  I  think  about  that  wonderful 
life  in  the  West,  the  more  I  feel  that  such  happy  endings 
are  the  rule.  Such  women  simply  cannot  fail." 

I  glanced  at  her  with  a  sharp  suspicion,  but  she  was 
talking  earnestly  on. 

"And  believe  me,  I  have  seen  enough  to  make  a  girl 
almighty  wise.  My  father  died  and  I  had  to  fight  for 
every  inch  of  the  ladder  I  climbed — at  first  as  a  juvenile 
in  stock  and  then  in  cheap  road  companies.  You  know 
what  that  means — what  some  managers  are — especially 
with  a  girl  like  me.  I'm  not  sitting  here  as  a  sweet  little 
saint — I  went  over  the  line  and  I  had  to.  And  I  even 
wanted  to,  sometimes.  After  all,  it's  the  deepest  thing  in 
life — and  the  blood  in  my  veins  runs  pretty  warm.  You 


BLIND  1$S 

see,  Larry  dear,  I'm  trying  my  best  to  be  honest  with  you. 
No  posing — that's  me.  But  I've  been  pretty  decent 
through  it  all — decent  in  the  real  sense,  I  mean.  And  I've 
tried  to  be  real — and  see  things  real." 

"Then  you're  one  in  a  thousand,"  I  said.  "I've  never 
yet  met  a  girl  on  the  stage  who  could  see  or  even  care  to 
see  one  thing  in  the  world  but  her  own  little  part.  Of  all 
the  narrow  people — with  nothing  but  shop  talk,  envy, 
scheming,  vanity " 

"Oh  fiddlesticks.  You  know  we're  not  so  bad  as  that." 
She  turned  on  her  elbow  in  the  sand.  "Mr.  Weary  New 
York  Cynic,"  she  smiled,  "lift  up  thine  eyes  unto  the  hills 
— I  mean  to  the  mountains  in  the  West — and  get  a  little 
of  my  faith.  An  American  actress,  like  everyone  else,  is 
a  mixture  of  pettiness  and  oceans  of  good  qualities,  too — 
kindness,  pluck,  generosity  and  no  end  of  others- 
bounded  on  the  north,  perhaps,  by  a  not  very  enormous 
brain,  on  the  east  and  west  by  an  evening  gown  as  sketchy 
and  transparent  as  her  manager  can  find  any  excuse  for, 
and  on  the  south  by  stockings  which  he  insists  must  be  of 
silk — and  the  thinner  the  better.  That's  the  whole  trouble. 
She's  like  all  other  women,  poor  thing — but  her  whole 
body  and  her  soul  are  so  rigged  up  and  shone  upon  by  the 
calcium  that  you  see  her  all.  And  she  gets  so  used  to  being 
seen  that  at  moments  she  forgets  her  mother's  little  old 
red  shawl.  Otherwise,"  said  Mabel  gravely,  "she's  a  per 
fect  lady." 

She  turned  her  mischievous  eyes  on  mine. 

"To  come  back  to  me,"  she  suggested.  I  started  then 
to  tell  her  that  she  was  different  from  the  rest — but 
before  I  had  time  to  get  very  intense,  she  cut  me  off. 
"Don't  start  it,  Larry — please !"  she  said.  "You're  differ 
ent,  too — I  mean  to  me.  And  I'm  just  as  I  said  I  was — 
when  I  let  go — and  we  mustn't  now.  We've  got  a  big 
play  to  put  over." 

"And  after  that?" 


164  BLIND 

She  was  too  quick  for  me. 

"You  look  right  out  at  that  ocean !"  she  cried.  I  did  so. 
"Now  Mr.  Hart/'  said  the  voice  at  my  side,  "I've  a  littlt 
question  to  ask  you.  Will  you  marry  me,  Larry  dear?" 

"Mabel,  you're  acting,"  I  rejoined.  She  lay  back  laugh 
ing  on  the  sand. 

"Oh  you  poor  idiot  of  a  boy — of  course  I  am — and  so 
are  you.  We  can't  help  it,  can  we?  It's  our  job,  our 
precious  bread  and  butter." 

"Oh  damn  our  bread  and  butter !" 

"Why  Larry,  how  can  you  speak  like  that — of  our 
own  dear  child — I  mean  our  play?" 

"Drat  the  play!" 

"Look  here,  Mr.  Author,  it  strikes  me  that  I'm  getting 
all  the  good  lines  in  this  scene.  All  you  have  to  say  is, 
'Drat  the  play' — and — 'Damn  our  bread  and  butter/ 
Larry  dear,  as  a  playwright  you  ought  to  be  ashamed  of 
yourself." 

I  knelt  beside  her  on  the  sand. 

"Mabel,"  I  said  solemnly,  "you  have  asked  me  to  be 
your  husband.  But  before  I  trust  myself  to  you,  there  is 
one  question,  dearest,  that  I  feel  sure  my  good  old  father 
if  he  had  lived  would  wish  me  to  ask." 

"That's  pretty  good,  Larry,"  she  murmured.  "Almost 
sure  to  get  a  laugh." 

"This  is  not  a  laugh,"  I  said  sternly.  "My  question  is 
this.  If  you  marry  me  will  you  keep  me?  I'm  a  pretty 
sensitive  little  boy " 

"You're  six  feet  two " 

"Never  mind  if  I  am!  I'm  sensitive  from  head  to  toe! 
If  you  shake  me  you'll  simply  ruin  my  life!" 

"But  I  won't — I'll  stay  married,  you  poor  darling,  just 
as  long  as  you  want  me  hard  enough  to  make  you  behave 
in  such  a  way  that  Til  keep  enjoying  being  your  wife." 

I  have  written  enough  of  this  fluff  to  show  how  we 
were  getting  on.  In  various  cafes  in  town,  Mabel,  who 


BLIND  165 

loved  dancing,  appeared  in  a  smart  little  costume  of  silk 
and  tulle  that  matched  the  blue  of  her  eyes  and  set  off  her 
rather  full  but  ravishing  figure,  neck  and  arms.  Skirt 
short,  of  course,  blue  dancing  slippers  laced  up  high  above 
the  ankles.  We  played  our  scenes  in  various  moods — now 
talking  gayly  of  nothing  at  all,  now  flirting  most  outrage 
ously.  Again  in  a  warm  intimate  tone  she  would  speak 
about  our  play. 

"We'll  make  it  such  a  great  big  hit  that  I'll  be  here 
five  hundred  nights !  Five  hundred  nights !  Oh  Larry ! 
And  so  far  as  I've  seen  it  I  love  the  town.  Don't  talk  to 
me  of  wretched  old  laws  to  keep  its  glorious  skyscrapers 
down  I  wish  to  God  they  were  twenty  times  higher — 
and  all  its  dance  music  just  going  like  mad !  I  want  every 
thing  in  it  to  stay  'way  up !  And  will  it?  Will  it?  Or  am 
I  just  dreaming — and  is  it  because  I'm  still  quite  young? 
Oh  Larry,  I  don't  want  to  get  stale !  I  know  what  I  am, 
and  what  I've  got  in  me — what  I  want  to  do  on  the  stage, 
and  all  I  want  to  get  out  of  life!  It's  endless — perfectly 
endless,  dear !  And  so  much  of  it  comes  from  this  play  of 
ours — and  so  much  comes  from  loving  you !" 

Was  Mabel  faking?  I  don't  think  so.  It  was  not  so 
simple  as  that.  Her  feeling  for  me  was  like  mine  for  her 
— we  began  by  acting  but  grew  rapidly  more  real.  Time 
and  again  she  would  face  herself  and  try  her  best  to  be  on 
the  square,  not  only  with  me  but  with  my  play.  She 
worked  like  a  dog  in  rehearsals.  On  muggy  stifling  August 
days  she  would  smile  a  headache  down,  and  smooth  out 
quarrels  that  arose  and  endless  hitches  here  and  there.  Of 
a  nature  warm  and  exuberant,  even  though  she  was  work 
ing  so  hard  I  don't  doubt  for  a  minute  that  in  our  sprees 
she  let  herself  go  and  enjoyed  to  the  full  the  loving  and 
the  being  loved — in  fact,  she  went  so  far  at  times  that 
enjoyment  is  too  cold  a  word.  We  did  not  wait  till  the 
opening  night. 

"Yes,"  she  said  one  evening, 


166  BLIND 

"Tonight  ?" 

"Why  not?"  she  answered  tensely.  There  was  a  little 
silence. 

"Look  here,  Mabel — I  don't  care  a  fig  for  getting  mar 
ried  myself.  But  how  about  you?  Are  you  quite  sure  you 
really  don't?  Because  if  you  do,  it's  so  simple,"  I  said. 
She  looked  back  at  me  squarely : 

"Lawrence  Hart — do  you  take  this  woman  to  be  your 
wife — for  just  so  long  as  you  both  agree  ?" 

"I  do."  ' 

"And  will  you  be  square  with  her  all  the  while?" 

"I  will  be." 

"Oh  you  darling  boy,  how  nice  it  is  to  be  your  wife !" 

But  a  few  hours  later  she  whispered, 

"Remember,  Larry  dearest,  there  can't  be  many  nights 
like  this.  There's  the  play,  you  know,  and  it's  to  be  made 
the  biggest  success  you've  ever  had.  All  the  more  because 
of  tonight." 

So  much  for  Mabel's  honesty.  And  even  with  the  play 
itself  she  was  honest  from  her  point  of  view.  For  Mabel 
was  an  actress.  To  her  the  way  to  build  a  piece  was  to 
make  her  own  role  in  it  strong.  And  why  was  it  not 
stronger  to  let  our  woman  from  the  West,  after  grimly 
watching  the  wiles  of  the  lady  in  New  York,  rise  at  last 
in  all  the  glory  of  her  Colorado  "zip,"  wrench  her  hus 
band  loose  from  the  toils  and  then  turn  on  her  rival  ?  "This 
man  is  mine !  What  do  you  know  of  loving  a  man  ?  What 
do  you  know  of  anything  real  ?  What  do  you  know  of  the 

life  we  led "  and  a  whole  list  of  other  things.  It  was 

absolutely  true  to  life — and  so,  while  being  square  with 
the  author,  the  ambitious  young  actress  could  secure  a 
Samson-pulling-the-temple  down  Third  Act  curtain  for 
herself,  and  a  Fourth  Act  with  her  charms  restored,  which 
would  make  her  a  star  for  the  rest  of  her  days. 

To  give  the  details  of  how  it  was  done,  unobtrusively, 
bit  by  bit,  through  the  long  crowded  weeks  of  rehearsal 


BLIND  1S7 

and  later  during  our  month  on  the  road,  would  take  more 
space  than  I  have  here.  "What  Mabel  Did,"  might  well 
be  made  a  separate  little  volume  describing  in  a  nutshell 
our  American  stage  today — a  glamorous  reflection  of  our 
hurly-burly  life.  But  because  this  meandering  book  of 
mine  is  only  a  string  of  memories,  each  one  unfinished, 
incomplete,  I  shall  force  myself  again  to  be  brief.  And 
briefly,  what  she  did  was  this :  In  Act  I,  by  little  changes 
more  in  the  "business"  than  in  the  lines,  she 
built  the  young  wife  to  symbolize  the  fresh  keen  vigor 
of  the  West.  This  quality,  once  planted,  kept  cropping  up 
in  our  scenes  in  New  York.  Meanwhile  the  girl  I  had 
chosen  to  play  the  role  of  the  Easterner,  a  good  looking 
able  sort,  found  herself  in  such  disaccord  both  with  Mabel 
and  the  manager  that  one  day  she  threw  up  her  part ;  and 
her  successor  was  so  commonplace,  so  tame  and  acquies 
cent,  that  it  became  increasingly  hard  to  make  it  seem 
convincing  that  the  husband  could  prefer  such  a  clod  to 
his  dynamic  Western  wife.  And  though  in  rehearsals 
Mabel  seemed  to  be  doing  her  best  to  act  her  part — sulk 
ing,  rapidly  growing  fat,  hating  New  York  and  going 
about  in  a  continual  state  of  grouch,  relieved  by  shrewd 
keen  bits  of  irony — every  one  of  them  a  sure  laugh — there 
was  nevertheless  a  gleam  in  her  eyes  that  showed  she  was 
going  to  start  something  soon.  In  short,  the  Happy  End 
ing  was  looming  rapidly  into  view. 

As  I  saw  what  she  was  driving  at,  there  were  hot  dis 
cussions,  angry  times.  Again  she  would  promise  to  do 
her  best.  But  she  simply  could  not  act  the  part  of  a  woman 
going  dully  and  impassively  to  defeat.  Or  if  she  could, 
she  wouldn't.  The  only  way  to  save  my  story  would  have 
been  to  put  her  out.  And  then  goodbye  to  Mabel.  And 
between  the  play  and  the  girl  I  probably  would  have  cho 
sen  the  latter.  But  I  came  to  no  such  choice.  For  after  all, 
she  had  truth  on  her  side.  We're  an  optimistic  country 
still,  bristling  with  men  and  women  of  the  kind  that  are 


168  BLIND 

bound  to  succeed.  So  I  salved  my  conscience.  The 
new  story  was  as  real  as  the  old.  Only — it  was  not  so 
deep..  Why  is  it  that  tragedy  is  always  deeper  than  suc 
cess?  Steve,  perhaps,  could  have  told  me  why.  But  I 
had  no  time  for  him,  those  days.  I  was  trying  desperately 
to  save  both  my  play  and  my  love  affair — I  was  in  swift 
waters  now.  And  because  the  new  story  had  to  be  grafted 
onto  the  old,  there  was  so  much  re-writing,  twisting  and 
turning  to  be  done,  that  what  we  finally  produced — for  all 
its  apparent  truthfulness — was  a  combination  of  the  two, 
as  shallow  and  as  shrewdly  false  as  that  crude  formless 
labor  pageant  had  been  deep  and  fiercely  real. 


4. 

But  I  did  not  see  it  at  the  time ;  and  even  now  as  I  look 
back,  it  is  not  that  which  makes  we  wince.  For  I  have 
been  more  interested  in  living  than  in  writing.  I  have  not 
followed  a  writer's  career — on  the  contrary — my  poor 
career  has  always  had  to  follow  me.  And  it  was  on  this 
side  of  the  footlights  that  I  now  received  a  jolt. 

As  I  loved  this  gorgeous  youngster,  I  strained  every 
nerve  to  help  her  climb  to  her  place  among  the  tinsel  stars, 
taking  for  my  very  own  her  eagerness  and  glad  belief  in 
the  game  which  she  made  glorious.  Years  of  success 
had  left  me  stale.  She  swept  me  back  into  my  youth.  So 
together  we  put  over  our  piece — and  our  impossible  wife, 
transformed,  played  to  crowded  houses.  For  hundreds  of 
nights  she  was  acclaimed  as  a  great  American  figure,  true 
symbol  of  our  national  rush  and  scramble.  Mabel  was  a 
star.  But  in  the  months  that  followed,  I  saw  my  vivid 
fresh  young  goddess  quaff  deep  of  that  exhilarating  brew 
which  is  compounded  of  the  adoration  of  college  youths, 
the  flattery  of  women  reporters,  the  smiles  and  wiles  of 
photographers,  the  hungry  eyes  of  managers,  and  through 
it  all  the  joyous  din  of  curtain  calls  innumerable.  She  had 
her  own  press  agent  now,  a  resolute  brazen  looking  lad 


BLIND  169 

with  pompadour  hair  so  absurdly  light  that  we  called  him 
"the  Albino."  To  me  he  personified  the  whole  ravenous 
thirsty  town.  To  drain  her  dry  of  her  freshness  he  ran 
sacked  her  early  life,  her  long  rides  with  her  father  over 
the  mountains  to  lonely  cabins.  He  even  faked  a  daguer- 
rotype  of  Mabel  as  a  little  girl.  He  drew  on  her  mem 
ories  of  the  West,  her  years  in  stock  and  on  the  road,  hints 
of  various  love  affairs.  And  it  was  all  that  I  could  do  to 
keep  our  own  story  out  of  print.  For  she  laughed  at  my 
outbursts.  At  times  she  would  simply  overwhelm  all 
efforts  at  bad  temper  by  the  impulsive  warmth  of  her  love. 
Again,  as  one  fellow  to  another,  she  would  very  sensibly 
ask, 

"Oh  Larry,  now  why  shouldn't  I  ?  Why  be  a  prig  and  a 
little  fool  and  refuse  to  please  the  public,  dear  ?" 

So  she  blithely  scrawled  her  name  to  the  most  awful 
piffle  which  Albino  Charley  wrote  on  Modern  Love,  on 
Suffrage,  on  Cooking,  Christian  Science,  the  Boundless 
West  and  so  on.  She  let  herself  be  photographed  in  all  the 
good  old  poses,  and  also  with  a  baby  mountain  lion  in  her 
arms.  It  had  been  borrowed  from  the  circus.  "Mabel 
Grey  and  Her  Favorite  Pet."  She  had  taken  an  apartment 
with  one  enormous  studio  room,  and  there  she  began  to 
give  parties  galore.  In  one  of  these  a  film  was  shown  of 
a  dense  African  jungle,  with  tigers  and  lions,  at  which  her 
guests  shot  with  silver  mounted  rifles,  to  the  popping  of 
the  corks  of  many  bottles  of  champagne.  "Mabel  Grey 
Gives  Jungle  Shoot."  There  were  other  occasions  equally 
dizzy.  Invitations  to  parties  of  many  kinds  poured  in,  and 
she  accepted  them  all.  Why  shouldn't  she?  Here  was 
"zip"  and  thrill.  By  these  the  town  was  kept  "way  up." 
And  Mabel  dancing  was  a  joy  to  make  the  stalest  sinner 
smile.  But  the  pace  was  fast  and  furious.  She  was  not 
only  playing  every  night  but  working  with  me  on  her  next 
play,  "Rouge." 

"Mabel,  for  God's  sake,"  I  would  cry,  "why  can't  you 


170  BLIND 

see  that  to  get  anywhere  you've  got  to  cut  these  parties 
out  ?  I've  nothing  against  'em  now  and  then — but  look  at 

your  friend  Elsie  B .  She  has  made  a  hit  as  big  as 

yours,  but  does  she  let  it  turn  her  head?  It' s'a  rare  night 
when  little  Elsie  doesn't  go  straight  home  to  bed." 

"Let  her  sleep !"  snapped  Mabel.  She  kept  it  up.  And 
even  one  season  left  its  marks.  Not  on  her  looks — she  had 
them  still — and  they  were  enhanced  by  all  the  filmy  lacy 
stuff,  the  penciled  shadows,  paint  and  curls  by  which  the 
city's  beauty  makers  their  mysterious  tricks  perform.  The 
change  was  in  the  soul  of  her — restless  moods  and  bursts 
of  temper,  endless  craving  for  applause,  for  something 
new,  then  something  newer.  Her  old  honesty  dropped 
away,  and  with  it  her  sense  of  humor.  God  help  her,  she 
even  came  to  believe  the  mush  Albino  Charley  wrote. 

All  this  picture,  you  may  say,  is  that  of  a  man  insanely 
jealous.  You  are  right.  But  the  jealousy  was  not  all  on 
one  side.  I  was  still  the  son  of  Carrington  Hart,  with 
hosts  of  friends  to  whom  the  rumor  of  my  affair  with  the 
prize  new  lady  of  the  year  only  increased  my  attractive 
ness.  Hence  ominous  flashes  from  Mabel,  questions 
asked  with  gleaming  eyes,  and  'dark  threats  uttered.  But 
she  did  not  carry  them  out.  I  was  still  the  only  favored 
one.  And  I  think  she  clung  to  me,  not  only  for  the  sake 
of  the  new  play  on  which  we  were  working,  but  quite  as 
much  because  I  had  been  her  companion  through  the  daz 
zling  time  on  which  already,  so  swift  was  the  pace,  she 
looked  back  as  the  peak  of  her  youth.  She  wanted  desper 
ately  to  keep  that.  I  was  in  Act  One  and  she  hated  to 
close  it.  To  put  off  bringing  the  curtain  down,  she  exerted 
herself  so  ardently  that  she  fooled  not  only  me  but  her 
self.  The  work  on  our  new  comedy  went  particularly  well. 
On  the  strength  of  this  the  old  comradeship,  and  in  its 
wake,  the  old  passion,  returned.  So  we  drifted  through  to 
the  time  when  "Rouge"  was  at  last  completed  and  the 


BLIND  171 

contract  for  it  signed.  And  then  one  night  in  a  cafe, 
where  some  idiots  were  watching  us,  whispering  and 
smiling,  Mabel  said  impulsively, 

"I'm  getting  rather  sick  of  this — being  whispered  at,  I 
mean.  How  about  getting  married?  You  spoke  of  it  once 
— and  if  you  haven't  changed  your  mind  I  think  it  would 
be  quite  nice  and  amusing." 

"All  right.  When?" 

"Tonight,  of  course." 

"And  the  license?"  I  reminded  her.  She  concealed  a 
little  yawn  and  said, 

"Oh  I  guess  you  can  get  it,  Larry  dear.  Pay  enough 
to  get  somebody  out  of  bed,  or  else  let  it  go  until  morn 
ing.  But  I  want  to  be  married  tonight — and  I  think  a 
church  wedding  would  be  nice.  I  have  a  little  pull  I'll 
work." 

She  called  up  a  few  of  her  friends,  and  they  became 
so  delightedly  busy  that  within  an  hour  or  so 
Mabel  and  I  were  man  and  wife.  So  far,  so  good. 
But  when  we  emerged  from  the  little  church,  it 
seemed  as  though  all  the  photographers  and  movie 
experts  in  the  town  were  gathered  to  do  their 
deadly  work.  I  saw  the  Albino  in  the  crowd,  and  it  came 
over  me  in  a  flash  that  this  impulsive  wedding  was  simply 
another  publicity  stunt,  which  he  had  carefully  worked  up 
to  get  full  advertising  value  out  of  me  and  my  family 
name.  There  was  nothing  to  do  but  run  the  gauntlet,  grind 
one's  teeth  and  so  get  through  the  supper  party — thank 
God  for  the  noise.  But  when  we  reached  her  apartment 
at  last,  though  she  flew  instantly  into  my  arms  and  sobbed 
and  begged  me  to  believe  that  she  had  known  nothing 
about  it  at  all,  would  not  for  worlds,  and  so  on — I  said 
nothing  in  reply.  I  was  grimly  determined  to  play  with 
her  no  scene  that  night.  My  thoughts  went  over  the  head 
lines  and  front  page  pictures  to  appear  on  the  morrow,  and 


172  BLIND 

the  films.  I  decided  to  leave  town  for  awhile.  I  was  sud 
denly  sick  of  Mabel  Grey.  The  end  of  our  affair  had  come, 
and  instinctively  I  tried  to  get  out  in  time  to  skip  the  last 
big  scene. 

But  she  insisted  on  playing  it  through.  She  would  not 
let  me  get  away,  she  threatened  to  scream  and  raise  a  row, 
and  in  hopes  of  avoiding  still  more  noise  I  agreed  to  let 
her  talk  it  out.  This  she  did  in  her  bedroom.  Lights  way 
down,  room  almost  dark.  Business  of  beautiful  heaving 
bosom,  filmy  garments  torn  in  shreds.  She  flew  from  one 
pose  to  the  next.  She  played  the  scene  at  her  dressing 
table,  watching  me  in  the  mirror  of  course — comb  sav 
agely  tearing  at  her  hair;  and  she  played  it  on  her  knees. 
It  was  as  cheap  as  cheap  could  be.  Moreover,  I  was  cross 
and  tired.  Each  moment  deepened  my  disgust.  With  her 
the  glamor  of  the  town  had  grown  to  a  gorgeous  bubble 
and  burst.  In  her  as  in  a  mirror  I  saw  what  had  been  hap 
pening  in  myself.  All  freshness  and  sincerity  and  honesty 
gone  out  of  life,  together  with  real  faiths  and  dreams — 
all  made  a  show  of  and  brought  down  to  a  basis  of  pub 
licity,  stale  and  artificial.  In  me  the  change  had  taken 
years — in  her  one  year  had  done  the  trick. 

But  she  could  not  see  it.  Loudly  furious,  she  declared 
that  the  little  publicity  stunt  of  the  evening  was  none  of 
her  planning  but  something  fresh,  spontaneous,  warm,  all 
in  the  game  of  Broadway  life.  Where  was  the  harm  in  it, 
anyhow  ? 

"Oh  Mabel,"  I  said  wearily,  "can't  you  be  honest  even 
now?  There  was  nothing:  fresh  or  spontaneous  here.  It 
was  all  a  cold-blooded  fake  from  the  start.  You  waited 
till  the  new  play  was  finished  and  the  contract  signed. 
Then  you  let  Albino  Charley  take  this  whole  affair  of 
ours,  bring  it  to  a  climax  tonight  and  turn  that  into  head 
lines  with  a  cold  cash  value.  You  did  it  without  letting  me 
know,  because  you  knew  I  wouldn't  agree — that  in  fact  it 


BLIND  173 

would  probably  end  our  affair.  You  took  something  in 
us  once  fresh  and  real,  and  traded  it  off  for  a  big  free  'ad.' 
And  in  doing  that  you  showed  yourself  stale.  I  don't 
claim  to  be  any  better,  my  dear — I'm  probably  staler  even 
than  you,  because  I've  been  here  longer.  But  so  long  as 
there's  nothing  fresh  or  real  left  in  the  feeling  between  us 
now,  can't  you  see  that  the  only  way  is  to  drop  it?" 

In  short,  disgusted  and  tired  out,  instead  of  being  sen 
sible  and  smoothly  ending  the  affair  by  falling  in  with 
Mabel's  whim,  and  playing  the  last  scene  vivid  and  big 
right  up  to  the  curtain,  I  stuck  to  the  facts  and  let  it  all 
down — with  the  result  that  my  young  actress  wife,  by 
now  so  beautifully  dressed  for  the  part  in  creamy  silk 
pajamas,  became  abruptly  just  plain  mad,  and  with  an 
ugly  smile  she  said, 

"All  right,  dearie,  if  that's  how  you  want  it,  I'll  make 
it  easy  as  I  can.  There  are  about  a  thousand  would-be  co 
respondents,  and  I'll  let  Albino  Charley  pick  the  most 
promising  of  the  lot — just  to  let  you  see  how  stale  I  am ! 
And  when  the  thing  gets  into  court,  it  will  be  Just  as  far 
from  stale  as  Charley  can  make  it!  Do  you  get  me? 
There's  a  hell  of  a  lot  of  publicity  left  in  this  thing  yet, 
my  love !" 

When  later  the  case  came  to  trial,  although  I  did  not 
appear  in  court,  it  was  hard  to  escape  the  headlines.  They 
rang  all  the  changes  upon  "His  Impossible  Wife."  The 
play  had  become  a  reality.  Mabel  was  the  girl  from  the 
West,  crude,  genuine,  warm-blooded,  real — whom  I,  the 
young  New  York  millionaire,  was  about  to  throw  aside 
like  a  discarded  mistress.  It  was  very  raw  stuff,  but  they 
put  it  across.  With  the  aid  of  her  several  lawyers,  Mabel 
worked  up  skilfully  to  the  big  scene  where  she  took  the 
stand  and  told  the  story  of  her  young-  life.  And  she  played 
it  so  effectively  that  it  was  all  my  attorney  could  do,  with 
the  help  of  a  sympathetic  judge,  to  hold  the  jury  in  line 


174  BLIND 


for  me.  When  at  last  my  divorce  was  granted,  one  gray- 
headed  old  fool  of  a  juror,  who  had  held  out  in  Mabel's 
favor,  laid  a  trembling  hand  on  her  bowed  head  and  said, 

"God  bless  you,  little  woman!" 

"Rouge"  was  an  enormous  success. 


CHAPTER  X 

1. 

As  to  the  annoyance  and  disgust  of  my  family  through 
the  whole  affair,  there  is  no  need  to  dwell  on  that.  They 
said  nothing  about  it  to  me.  I  remember  my  father's  look 
when  I  went  to  him  at  the  start — but  he  was  grimly  prac 
tical.  Would  she  take  money  and  keep  still?  She  would 
not.  Then  he  hoped  I  would  leave  this  to  his  lawyer  and 
get  out  of  town.  I  promptly  agreed.  I  was  sick  of  New 
York— ^and  as  Steve  had  done  before  me,  I  came  out  here 
to  Seven  Pines,  to  think  it  all  over,  take  stock  of  my 
life. 

And  at  first  it  was  not  cheerful  thinking.  I  felt  stale 
from  head  to  foot.  My  wise  old  Aunt  Amelia  left  me 
pretty  much  alone. 

"Larry,"  she  said  quietly,  "there  is  so  much  in  this 
affair  I  wouldn't  be  apt  to  understand,  that  I  see  no  use 
in  talking  it  over.  And  anyway  I  am  always  so  very  much 
more  interested  in  what  young  people  are  going  to  do 
than  in  what  they  have  done.  You  have  certainly  lived 
pretty  hard.  I'm  so  glad  now  you've  come  back  home  to 
think  it  over  and  find  yourself — and  get  ready  to  do  some 
thing  better  than  you've  ever  done  before." 

So  she  left  me  to  myself.  Dorothy  was  away  on  a  visit, 
and  I  was  glad  she  was  not  here.  I  had  not  seen  her  for 
nearly  a  year.  But  one  evening  soon  after  I  arrived,  my 
young  cousin  came  home  unexpectedly;  and  as  she  looked 
in  from  the  hall,  at  sight  of  me  she  gave  a  little  start. 

"Oh — why,  hello,  Larry — nobody  told  me  you  were 
here." 

Though  her  voice  was  natural  enough,  her  expression 

175 


176  BLIND 

was  so  strained  that  when  she  had  gone  up  to  her  room  I 
made  up  my  mind  to  leave  the  next  day.  But  in  the  morn 
ing  I  learned  she  had  gone — "on  another  visit,"  her 
mother  said.  So  again  I  was  left  to  my  thinking. 

And  this  old  house  where  I  had  been  reared  began  to 
make  its  presence  felt,  by  subdued  and  unobtrusive  whis 
perings  and  creaking  sounds  which  suddenly  took  my 
memory  back.  Long  ago  in  college  days  a  man  had  told 
me  I  was  "psychic" — and  he  was  right  to  this  extent — 
that  sometimes  this  home  of  mine,  so  filled  with  the  pres 
ence  of  my  aunt,  would  seem  to  speak  to  me  for  her,  and 
yet  with  a  personality  more  masculine  and  all  its  own, 
compounded  of  the  presences  of  others  still  remembered 
here.  Like  a  kind  but  gossipy  old  friend,  fairly  bursting 
with  curiosity,  it  seemed  to  listen  all  intent  while  I  went 
over  my  affair — and  cheerfully  it  seemed  to  say, 

"All  right,  my  boy,  you've  been  a  fool.  But  is  that  any 
thing  new  in  your  life  ?  Remember  the  time  you  ran  away 
to  New  York  with  a  drunken  horse-dealer?  Yes,  you 
have  been  a  mixer  and  an  adventurer,  my  son;  and  now 
you  have  gone  and  done  it  again.  It  will  be  well  for  you 
some  day  to  stroll  down  to  that  old  tree  in  the  wood, 
where  a  repentant  little  lad  once  used  to  beat  himself  on 
the  shins." 

"But  I'm  not  repentant,"  I  replied.  "You  miss  the 
point  entirely."  And  I  gave  a  peevish  sigh.  "But  what 
«lse  should  I  have  expected?  A  puritanical  old  house " 

"I  am  not  a  puritanical  old  house,"  came  the  stiff 
rejoinder.  "I  am  decidedly  modern!  In  the  past,  if  you 
had  come  with  any  such  story  of  carnal  love,  you  would 
have  got  it  hot  and  heavy — and  it  would  have  done  you 
good !  As  it  is,  being  thoroughly  up  to  date,  I  treat  the 
matter  lightly — as  a  mistake,  an  escapade,  a  thing  to  be  a 
bit  ashamed  of.  And  you  reply " 

"I'm  trying  to  tell  you  that  instead  of  being  ashamed, 


BLIND  177 

on  the  whole  I'm  glad  I  had  it!  I  needed  it  to  open  my 
eyes!" 

"Then  what's  worrying  you?" 

"What's  worrying  me  is  that  I've  been  getting  so  stale 
and  dry,  so  spoiled  by  being  popular  and  by  cheap  living 
in  New  York,  that  I  can  no  longer  get  a  grip  on  anything 
real!" 

"Very  well,  let's  go  into  this  thoroughly.  Go  back 
through  the  last  twenty  years  and  tell  me  the  story  of  your 
life."' 

With  the  greatest  relish  it  listened  to  everything  I  had 
to  tell. 

"Well,  young  man,  if  you  want  to  write  some  exceed 
ingly  hectic  books  and  plays,  you  can  sit  down  and  start 
right  in.  God  knows  you  have  the  material — you  have 
crowded  forty  lifetimes  into  twenty  feverish  years.  But 
you  have  been  living  on  whiskey,  and  now  you  had  better 
take  the  cure.  You've  been  seeing  life  from  an  automobile 
— look  at  it  from  a  buggy  instead.  Stay  with  me  for  a  few 
years."  I  made  a  restless  movement.  "Oh  I  doubt  if 
you'll  be  very  bored.  There  may  be  sentimental  fools  who 
sing  of  me  as  Home,  Sweet  Home;  but  behind  my  sweetly 
simple  air  I'm  a  pretty  wise  old  citizen.  I  am  packed  full 
of  a  hundred  years  and  ready  for  a  hundred  more. 
Through  the  mortals  who  come  within  my  walls,  all  things 
human  and  divine  sooner  or  later  enter  my  doors.  Abide 
with  me  a  little  while,  and  from  an  old  American  home 
let  us  look  at  what  is  brewing  in  this  chaotic  world  today.'* 

'Rather  ungraciously  I  agreed.  I  still  wanted  to  be 
alone  for  a  time.  I  got  a  horse  and  took  long  rides  along 
familiar  country  roads.  So  several  quiet  weeks  went  by. 


2. 

And  after  that,  in  Steve's  home  only  a  few  miles  away, 
I  found  a  new  companion.   With  Lucy  and  Steve  I  had 


178  BLIND 

little  in  common — or  rather,  too  much.  They  knew  too 
much,  and  behind  their  kind  forbearance  I  knew  what 
they  were  thinking.  But  with  Tommy  it  was  different. 
Quite  obviously  delighted  to  have  his  Uncle  Larry  back, 
he  took  me  right  into  his  life,  depths  fresh  and  radiant 
and  new. 

Tommy  at  the  age  of  twelve  was  no  longer  fat  but  tall 
and  thin,  all  angles,  bone  and  hard  young  muscle.  His 
voice  was  fully  as  deep  as  before,  and  his  grave  brown 
eyes  as  eagerly  intent  on  all  the  ways  and  means  by  which 
a  boy  contrives  to  feed  the  swiftly  changing  desires  of  his 
lusty  body  and  soul.  Tommy's  desire  to  be  out  of  doors 
was  a  veritable  passion.  Although  he  had  been  out  all 
day,  supper  was  barely  over  at  night  before  he  was  earn 
estly  thinking  up  "something  I  gotta  do  tonight"  that 
would  keep  him  safely  out  of  range  of  the  hated  bedtime 
call.  It  was  "to  close  my  chicken  house"  or  "to  bed  my 
pony  down."  But  long  after  such  tasks  were  accom 
plished,  he  would  remain  out  under  the  harvest  moon, 
prowling  like  an  Indian  scout,  standing  still  and  listening 
hard,  visiting  various  secret  spots,  sniffing  vigilantly  for 
skunks.  I  sniffed  one  with  him  one  evening — sniffed  it  to 
an  awful  extent. 

"Gosh!"  whispered  Tommy  breathlessly.  "There's 
going  to  be  hell  tonight !" 

We  got  a  lantern  from  the  barn  and  excitedly  inspected 
the  intricate  fortifications  by  which  my  nephew's  hen 
house  and  his  coops  for  "baby  chickens"  were  protected 
from  marauders. 

"You  can't  be  too  careful,"  Tommy  said.  "A  skunk  has 
a  big  head  on  his  shoulders.  And  if  he  does  find  a  hole  to 
crawl  through,  he's  not  like  a  mink,  satisfied  with  one  hen 
— no  sir,  he'll  suck  the  blood  out  of  'em  all !  I  lost  seven 
teen  hens  and  a  rooster  once,  and  I'm  taking  no  chances  I" 

When  the  defences  were  found  intact,  we  went  on  to  in 
spect  the  skunk  trap.  This  was  a  barrel  so  arranged  that 


BLIND  179 

when  a  skunk  entered  to  get  the  bait  the  barrel  tipped  tip 
— and  there  he  was!  There  then  remained  the  question, 
how  to  get  him  somewhere  else. 

"It's  no  easy  job,"  said  Tommy.  "Dad's  patients  here 
are  nervous  people.  They  come  to  the  country  for  fresh 
air — and  if  it  isn't  fresh  every  minute,  they  can't  be  con 
tented  till  I  get  a  licking — although  I  happen  to  be  the 
one  who  gives  'em  eggs  for  breakfast.  But  I  tell  you  what 
I  do.  If  I  find  Mister  Skunk  in  the  barrel,  I  don't  pretend 
to  notice  him.  The  least  little  scare  and  he'll  start  right 
in.  So  I  sneak  up  and  all  of  a  sudden  I  clap  on  a  good 
tight-fitting  lid.  I  nail  it  down,  then  tip  over  the  barrel 
and  start  it  rolling  down  the'  hill.  And  it  rolls  way  down 
to  the  farm  of  a  man  who  is  sensible  about  such  things." 

We  came  rather  cautiously  back  to  the  house,  and  look 
ing  through  the  kitchen  window  we  found  it  was  long 
after  nine  o'clock.  Whereupon — "so  as  not  to  get  mother 
excited" — we  fetched  a  ladder  from  the  barn;  and  noise 
lessly  mounting  to  his  window,  Tommy  crept  carefully 
into  his  room.  In  a  moment  he  stuck  out  his  head  and 
whispered, 

"It  might  be  a  pretty  good  idea  to  take  that  ladder  back 
to  the  barn." 

"All  right,  old  boy,  I'll  see  to  it." 

"Gee,  Uncle  Larry,  I'm  glad  you're  here!  Why  don't 
you  come  and  live  here?" 

I  came  over  often  after  that.  With  the  money  that  we 
earned  from  eggs  and  fowls  and  broilers,  ducks  and  fine 
big  Belgian  hares,  we  climbed  into  the  pony  cart  and  rat 
tled  down  to  the  village  store;  and  there  we  bought  the 
things  we  needed — a  good  strong  hammer  or  an  ax,  a 
bag  of  good  strong  candy,  glue,  elastic  bands  for  sling 
shots,  nails,  spikes,  shingles,  fishing  hooks,  kite  string  and 
a  food  for  hens  called  "Lay  or  Bust."  We  stopped  at  the 
village  smithy  and  had  our  faithful  pony  shod.  We  drove 
back  home  and  were  late  for  lunch.  We  were  nearly 


180  BLIND 

always  late  for  lunch.  There  were  so.  many  things  we  had 
to  do.  We  built  a  small  log  cabin  far  up  on  the  wooded 
ridge,  and  on  starry  autumn  nights  we  went  up  there  with 
Oberookoff,  fried  our  bacon  and  eggs  and  potatoes,  and 
later  lay  back  in  the  balsam  listening  to  our  friend's  ac 
counts  of  the  wailing  howls  of  Russian  wolves  and  the 
blood-curdling  conjuries  of  a  village  sorcerer  he  had 
known. 

Long  before  this  I  had  slipped  back  into  my  old  place 
in  the  family.  I  was  on  good  terms  with  Emmy,  a  shy 
moon-faced  little  daughter  of  nine;  and  I  drew  closer  to 
Lucy  and  Steve.  I  felt  Steve's  new  attitude  toward  his 
son.  Surprised  and  touched  to  discover  Tommy's  admira 
tion  and  love  for  him,  Steve  had  begun  some  years  before 
to  enter  into  Tommy's  life,  and  had  been  my  predecessor 
in  many  fine  adventures  here.  He  it  was  who  had  taught 
the  lad  to  use  an  axe,  to  ride  and  swim.  Often  they  would 
disappear  for  a  whole  day  together — and  Steve  had  lain 
by  Tommy's  side  on  that  great  still  momentous  night 
when  for  the  first  time  in  his  life  the  boy  had  slept  out 
under  the  stars.  So  it  was  through  Tommy  that  Steve 
and  I  came  together  again.  I  had  fallen  into  the  habit  of 
thinking  of  him  as  "poor  old  Steve,"  the  brilliant  chap 
who  had  lost  his  chance.  Now  however  by  degrees  I  real 
ized  that  I  was  wrong.  A  good  deal  heavier  in  build,  with 
iron  gray  in  his  thick  hair  and  more  perceptible  markings 
in  his  powerful  sunburned  face,  I  could  not  miss  the 
impress  there  of  a  new  grip,  a  deeper  assurance  and  quiet 
poise.  Steve  was  just  as  busy  as  he  had  ever  been  in 
New  York.  For  the  place  had  grown  and  its  work  had 
changed.  "Dad's  patients  here  are  nervous  people/'  Tom 
my  had  said,  and  he  was  right.  For  Steve  was  a  nerve 
specialist  whose  fame  was  spreading  far  and  wide;  and 
they  came  from  straining  feverish  towns  and  cities  all 
over  the  U.  S.  A. — twitching  jerky  specimens  or  people 
as  inert  as  logs,  still  others  with  obsessions  that  put  a 
queer  light  in  their  eyes. 


BLIND  181 

"Poor  people,"  Oberookoff  said.  "No  wonder  they  are 
nearly  mad.  In  cities  they  have  lost  their  roots.  In  Russia 
we  have  country  homes ;  and  though  people  go  to  Peters 
burg  they  still  return  to  their  estates,  where  they  were 
children,  where  they  know  the  peasants  and  their  songs 
and  tales,  the  church,  the  priest,  the  sorcerer.  But  these 
poor  Americans  have  no  homes.  In  apartment  buildings  in 
New  York  who  is  there  to  sing  folk  songs  ?  Only  the  ele 
vator  boy,  and  he  sits  reading  a  false  magazine.  There  is 
nothing  real.  They  have  no  roots.  They  have  lost  them 
in  the  city  life." 

In  this  sweeping  deep  analysis,  he  was  supported  by 
Aunt  Amelia.  In  fact,  the  idea  was  her  own.  But  one  day 
Steve,  who  had  regained  his  old  sense  of  the  irony  of 
things,  led  them  both  to  a  cottage  window  and  gave  them 
a  glimpse  of  a  tall  lean  man  who,  violently  twitching,  sat 
in  a  chair  and  glared  fiercely  at  the  wall.  Plainly  here 
was  a  victim  of  the  hectic  life  of  towns. 

"Poor  fellow,"  breathed  Oberookoff. 

"Is  he  from  New  York?"  inquired  my  aunt. 

"No,  he's  from  a  ranch  in  Montana,"  Steve  replied 
maliciously. 

From  such  widely  scattered  regions  of  our  country 
did  these  people  come,  that  as  I  look  back  on  them  they 
make  a  most  significant  part  in  the  picture  I  have  of  our 
national  life  as  it  was  when  the  Great  War  began — a  rest 
less  straining  heaving  mass  composed  of  untold  millions 
struggling  upward — dreaming,  scheming,  each  in  his  rut 
— a  few  engrossed  in  big  ideals,  like  Steve,  for  human 
happiness;  more  reaching  out  lean  strenuous  hands  for 
money — and  when  money  came,  flinging  it  blindly  here 
and  there.  Blind  to  any  real  happiness,  blind  to  the  dis 
carded  past  and  to  the  future  even  then  so  rapidly  loom 
ing  into  view.  A  nation  dragging  anchor,  breaking  from 
old  faiths,  restraints  and  ways  of  living,  crowding  into 
noisy  towns  and  groping  madly  for  the  new.  A  great 
people  in  transition  and,  through  its  immigration,  its  com- 


182  BLIND 

merce  and  its  travel  abroad,  bound  up  in  a  world  that  was 
crowding  the  transformations  of  ages  into  a  few  tumultu 
ous  years.  There  was  seething  restlessness  over  the  land 
— and  though  there  were  still  the  millions,  on  farms,  in 
drowsy  little  towns,  whose  lives  appeared  to  be  out  of 
the  reach  of  the  whirl  and  rush  and  pull  of  the  storm  so 
swiftly  gathering — in  reality  it  was  not  so.  For  the 
newspapers  and  magazines,  the  railroads  and  the  motor 
cars,  the  movies  and  the  travelling  men,  came  out  from 
the  big  cities — and  the  life  of  the  farms  and  little  towns 
began  to  stir  with  change  impending.  There  was  no 
village  in  the  land  in  which  some  restless  boy  or  girl  was 
not  dreaming  of  the  cities. 

And  out  of  this  prodigious  whirl,  all  kinds  of  people 
came  to  Steve.  Not  only  the  rich  came  here  to  be  cured, 
for  he  took  free  patients  constantly.  Machinists  from  my 
father's  mills  and  wealthy  brokers  from  New  York  came 
with  the  same  nerve  diseases,  working  girls  with  the  same 
complaints  as  the  wives  and  daughters  of  millionaires. 
Nerves — nerves !  Some  had  to  be  kept  in  bed  for  weeks, 
and  a  few  of  these  poor  specimens  died.  But  most  of  them 
kept  out  of  doors.  Some  took  tramps  or  horseback  rides, 
others  worked  upon  the  farm.  I  remember  one  bank  pres 
ident  perched  upon  a  mowing  machine  and  clucking  anx 
iously  to  his  team.  I  recall  a  shrewd-looking  woman, 
the  society  leader  of  a  thriving  western  town,  briskly 
weeding  onions  here — and  a  traction  promoter  milking 
cows — and  a  stout  dowager  from  Detroit  calmly  but 
earnestly  flying  a  kite  which  Tommy  had  loaned  her  one 
hot  day.  In  every  conceivable  fashion  did  these  mad 
people  try  to  relax. 


3. 

My  father  often  came  here  to  rest;  and  I  began  to 
notice  in  him  a  change  that  made  me  wince  a  bit.  To  me 
at  least  he  had  always  shown  a  vitality  inexhaustible,  but 


BLIND  183 

the  limits  now  began  to  appear.  Steve  was  his  physi 
cian  as  before,  and  Dad  obeyed  him  anxiously.  He  did 
light  work  out  of  doors.  With  Oberookoff  becoming  good 
friends,  he  had  tackled  that  crazy  little  mill  and  put  it 
into  running  shape ;  and  while  sawing  small  logs  into  fire 
wood,  they  had  long  soul-exploring  talks.  After  such  days 
out  of  doors,  he  would  often  come  over  to  Seven  Pines. 
He  and  I  were  no  longer  so  far  apart.  He  had  grown 
more  liberal  in  his  views,  and  I  less  radical  in  mine; 
and  we  came  together  again  on  T.  R.  and  the  new  Pro 
gressive  Party.  Dad  had  taken  Aunt  Amelia  out  to  the 
Chicago  convention.  She  had  listened  to  the  speeches 
there,  the  impassioned  declaration  of  a  new  faith  in  the 
soul  of  the  nation.  She  had  heard  that  great  assemblage 
sing  "Mine  Eyes  Have  Seen  the  Glory  of  the  Coming  of 
the , Lord" — with  a  deep  crusader's  zeal  that  carried  her 
far  back  to  her  youth  and  the  days  of  the  Civil  War.  And 
radiant  at  this  justification  of  her  life-long  belief,  she  said, 
"There  is  nothing  new  in  this — I  saw  it  as  a  little  girl. 
No  matter  how  keen  and  shrewd  and  hard  the  American 
people  may  seem  to  be — deep  down  in  every  one  of  them 
is  a  God-given  fire  that  never  goes  out.  And  when  they 
are  summoned  to  some  great  cause,  then  my  dears  these 
people  are  all  at  once  so  wonderful,  so  ready  to  lay  down 
their  lives,  that — oh  to  me  it  is  like  a  promise  of  how  the 
whole  world  is  going  to  be.  Years  ago  in  Chicago  I  felt 
this  promise  in  the  Fair.  I  shall  never  forget  to  my  dying 
day  the  White  City  on  those  nights  in  June.  I  remem 
ber  saying  to  myself,  'All  cities  some  day  will  be  like 
this/  And  now  again  out  there  in  the  West  I  have  seen 
the  vision.  New  things  are  stirring.  Men — and,  thank 
Heaven,  women,  too — are  firmly  making  up  their  minds 
that  all  that  is  ugly  and  selfish  and  mean  in  our  politics 
and  business  life  and  in  our  smoky  factory  towns  shall  be 
cleared  away — that  every  boy  and  girl  in  the  land  shall 
be  given  a  good  fair  start — and  be  brought  up  with  such 


184  BLIND 

ideals  that  the  nation  they  shall  build  at  last "  She 

paused  for  a  moment,  looked  down  at  her  hands  which 
were  locked  together  in  her  lap,  and  ended  in  a  reverent 
tone,  "It  shall  be  such  a  nation  that  to  all  the  weary  grop 
ing  peoples  of  the  earth,  my  dears,  it  shall  at  last  have 
earned  from  its  Master  the  right  to  tell  them,  'Follow 
me'/1 

I  remember  that  evening  vividly  still.  My  father  was 
here.  We  were  sitting  together  in  this  room  where  I  am 
writing  these  memories  down ;  and  where,  when  at  last  I 
reach  the  end,  I  shall  try — I  can  feel  it  in  my  bones — to 
take  stock  of  our  part  in  the  vast  struggle  which  to  some 
seems  ended,  to  others  only  just  begun.  Have  we 
advanced  one  step  on  the  road  to  Aunt  Amelia's  promised 
land?  Have  we  made  it  all  worth  while?  For  it  cost 
some  twenty  million  young  men  their  lives  or  their  limbs 
or  their  eyes,  you  know.  And  though  you  may  lay  us 
aside  with  pensions  or  in  soldiers'  homes  while  you  go 
on  in  the  same  old  way,  as  though  there  had  never  been 
any  war,  putting  all  those  big  ideals  of  service  and  devo 
tion  out  of  sight  upon  a  shelf,  while  in  your  business  or 
profession  or  your  lucrative  plumber's  job  you  join  in  the 
merry  scramble  for  all  the  money  you  can  get — then,  if 
I  read  the  times  aright,  you  or  your  children  will  come 
to  a  crash  such  as  no  country  but  Russia  has  seen. 

Oh,  what  a  solemn  book,  you  may  say.  But  it  is  sol 
emn  to  be  blind — to  have  the  whole  distracting  panorama 
of  today  wiped  out  of  your  view,  and  so  be  able  to  look 
back  on  what  you  have  seen  of  your  country's 
life,  and  a  great  war  and  a  great  revolution.  The 
cause  of  this  brief  outburst  was  that  "God-given 
fire"  in  which  my  brave  old  aunt  believed,  and 
which  was  soon  so  amazingly  to  burst  into  a  mighty 
flame.  And  as  my  story  now  draws  near  to  those  great 
winds  that  swept  the  world,  looking  back  to  the  days  on 
the  eve  of  the  storm  two  American  figures  stand  out  in 


BLIND  185 

my  mind.  One  was  Aunt  Amelia,  speaking  her  faith  in 
the  soul  of  the  nation;  the  other  was  my  father,  watching 
her  affectionately  with  a  look  half  sad  upon  his  face,  as 
though  he  were  thinking  of  his  life  and  all  the  other  lives 
he  had  known,  in  nearly  half  a  century  of  such  money- 
grabbing  as  the  world  has  never  seen,  and  were  saying, 
"What  a  damned  pity  America  is  not  like  that." 
Which  one  was  right?  My  life  of  late  had  not  been  of 
a  kind  to  foster  illusions.  My  father's  view  now  seemed 
to  me  close  to  the  grim  reality.  And  though  like  him  I 
could  be  stirred  of  an  evening  by  an  old  woman's  dream, 
my  faith  in  the  Progressive  Party  was  built  largely  on 
the  fact  that  so  many  of  its  leaders  were  men  of  my  fath 
er's  kind — liberal,  broad-minded,  but  with  their  feet  on 
solid  earth.  For  I  had  reached  a  stage  in  life  where  I 
was  betwixt  and  between.  As  I  drew  close  to  forty,  I 
felt  myself  both  young  and  old,  now  one  and  now  the 
other.  Could  I  ever  again  be  swept  off  my  feet  by  any 
tremendous  human  appeal?  In  some  moods,  yes — in 
others,  no.  Would  I  ever  write  anything  really  worth 
while?  Again  hopes,  doubt,  uncertainty.  For  although  I 
did  write  several  plays,  and  one  at  least,  The  Nerve  Farm, 
was  a  better  piece  of  work  than  anything  I  had  done 
before — I  was  still  blindly  feeling  about  for  a  grip  on  the 
deeper  realities;  still  groping,  as  my  country  was.  I  saw 
the  Progressive  Party  fail  to  hold  together;  I  saw  it 
crumble  and  go  down.  And  it  seemed  as  though  all  the 
social  forces  I  had  felt  gathering  in  my  youth  as  if  for 
some  achievement  world-wide,  were  scattering  now, 
grown  old  and  stale  and  utterly  impotent  to  control  the 
surging  rush  of  these  modern  times.  I  became  almost  a 
fatalist. 


4. 

But  I  was  not  always  so,  for  in  my  memories  of  that 
time  there  is  one  great  vivid  picture  — which  came  to 


186  BLIND 

me  through  Dorothy.  Though  never  quite  the  same  with 
me  as  she  had  been  in  the  years  before  my  luckless  love 
affair,  my  cousin  was  again  my  friend;  and  I  welcomed 
this  the  more  because  she  still  kept  her  old  eagerness  for 
life  and  new  experience.  The  last  few  years  of  dashing 
about  had  left  her  still  determined  to  find  a  job  and  set 
tle  down.  Vigorously  she  protested  against  my  fatalistic 
mood. 

"Larry,"  she  cried,  "you  are  growing  old!  Without 
making  the  slightest  effort  to  stop  it,  cooped  up  here  in 
the  country,  you're  drifting  straight  into  middle  age! 
You  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  yourself!" 

And  she  liked  to  drag  me  off  with  her  on  little  excur 
sions  into  scenes  in  which,  with  very  little  said,  her  buoy 
ancy,  so  warm  and  deep,  could  overwhelm  my  discourag- 
ment — now  to  town  for  a  concert  in  Carnegie  Hall  upon  a 
Beethoven  evening;  and  again  up  to  the  Polo  Grounds, 
for  she  was  the  only  girl  I  have  ever  had  the  luck  to  know 
who  really  loved  a  baseball  game.  But  our  most  suc 
cessful  time  was  the  Saturday  in  April,  1914,  when  Dor 
othy  persuaded  me  to  go  with  her  again  to  Ellis  Island, 
to  the  immense  red  building  there  through  which  in  the 
years  gone  by  men,  women  and  children  by  millions  had 
pressed  forward  hungrily  with  a  passion  of  hope  in  their 
eyes.  So  deep  and  so  tumultuous,  so  fresh  and  filled  with 
the  vigor  of  life,  was  that  passion  in  those  immigrants, 
that  I  had  gone  there  in  the  past  as  to  some  giant  fountain 
of  youth.  And  now  with  Dorothy  once  again  I  came 
under  the  spell  of  what  they  called  "a  big  day"  on  the 
Island. 

Out  of  the  barges  that  had  brought  them  from  the  ocean 
liners,  they  were  pouring  onto  the  dock,  gathering  in  two 
long  lines,  and  crowding,  pressing  eagerly  on.  Hope  in 
the  strange  old  visage  of  a  white-bearded  giant,  hope  in 
the  excited  face  of  a  young  girl  before  him,  hope  in  the 
stout  manfulness  of  the  queer  little  boy  by  her  side  who 


BLIND  187 

lugged  a  heavy  sack  on  his  shoulders.  Hope  in  the  very 
evident  fact  that  these  people  had  burnt  their  bridges,  had 
brought  all  their  worldly  goods  along,  not  only  bags  and 
satchels  but  their  pillows  and  their  bedding  in  big  bulging 
packages.  Hope  in  the  very  clothes  they  wore,  for  this 
was  gala  attire. 

"Oh  Larry,  just  look  at  that  lovely  old  shawl  P 

And  Dorothy  kept  pointing  out  the  kerchiefs  and  the 
streaming  scarfs,  the  skirts  and  bodices,  jackets  and  vests. 
What  a  crude  rich  medley  of  purples  and  greens  and  reds 
and  blues !  All  faces  were  impatiently  turned  to  the  gates 
that  led  into  the  building. 

"What  is  that  man  in  uniform  up  to?"  they  appeared 
to  be  asking. 

The  army  surgeon  by  our  side  held  a  small  stick  in  his 
hand,  and  with  this  stick  and  a  finger  he  deftly  rolled  up 
eyelids.  "Here's  another  one.  Look,"  he  would  say,  and 
on  the  underside  of  a  lid  he  would  show  us  the  red  lines 
of  trachoma.  On  the  backs  of  the  afflicted  he  would  mark 
with  a  piece  of  chalk;  and  each  of  them,  unaware  of  his 
fate,  would  go  blinking,  laughing,  hurrying  on.  Other 
officials  were  waiting  ahead,  and  there  were  searching 
looks,  quick  prods,  in  the  business  of  weeding  out  the  dis 
eased.  In  a  dozen  different  tongues,  they  kept  repeating, 

"Don't  get  frightened !" 

For  here,  while  the  main  throng  poured  on  up  a  long 
steep  flight  of  stairs,  those  suspected  of  being  unfit  were 
pushed  and  jerked  and  thrown  to  one  side.  "What  brutal 
officials !"  Dorothy  cried.  But  these  men  had  to  handle  ten 
thousand  people  in  a  day,  as  cowboys  in  a  human  herd. 
And  the  herd  grew  frenzied  here,  with  shrieks  and  wails 
of  wild  distress  as  friends  and  relations  were  torn  apart. 

Watching  our  chance  we  slipped  by  an  official,  and  with 
the  more  fortunate  ones  we  went  quickly  up  the  stairs  into 
the  immense  main  hall.  There  was  something  terrible  in 
the  power  of  this  surging  throng — in  the  coarse  heavy 


133  BLIND 

faces,  the  quiver  of  muscles  and  the  pressure  of  big  limbs, 
the  rough  eagerness  of  voices  that  spoke  in  a  clamor  of 
many  tongues.  "Look!  Quick!"  my  cousin  whispered. 
Close  by  us  in  its  mother's  arms  a  child  with  scared  wide- 
open  eyes  stared  fixedly  up  at  the  stars  and  stripes  of  the 
flag  which  hung  high  over  all.  The  crowd  was  constantly 
being  herded  into  twenty-two  long  lanes  divided  by  steel 
fences.  We  passed  along  the  side  of  the  hall  and  came  to 
the  head  of  one1  of  these  lanes,  where  at  a  high  desk 
sat  an  inspector  writing  busily  in  a  huge  book,  one  of 
thousands  of  such  books  stacked  away  in  dusty  rooms,  in 
which  are  recorded  year  by  year  the  strange  names  of 
these  inpouring  recruits  to  a  strangely  growing  American 
race.  An  interpreter  was  helping  him  decide  on  each 
new  candidate.  Fit  or  unfit  to  be  one  of  us  ? 

"How  much  money  have  you  got?"  The  answers  came 
in  paper  bills,  in  silver,  gold  or  copper  coins,  in  rubles, 
lira,  francs  and  marks,  in  kronen,  guilders,  ora. 

"Where  are  you  from?"  In  answer,  rough  voices 
uttered  the  names  of  sombre  ancient  cities  and  towns,  vil 
lages  on  rocky  coasts,  hamlets  perched  in  mountains  or 
far  out  on  Russian  steppes. 

"Where  are  you  going?"  The  replies  sent  one's  mind 
and  fancy  leaping  over  the  new  world.  And  as  they  were 
admitted  here,  with  sudden  laughter  and  loud  cries,  quick 
shouldering  of  heavy  bags  and  gathering  of  children,  off 
they  went,  most  of  them  running  pell  mell. 

"Don't  forget  your  luggage!"  was  shouted  at  them 
from  all  sides.  Those  who  were  not  carrying  their  be 
longings  in  their  hands  must  pick  out  trunks  and  bags 
and  boxes  in  the  baggage  room  below.  Beside  it,  a  long 
waiting  room  was  packed  and  crammed  with  people. 
Through  the  high  windows  a  setting  s"ri  painted  pr»Hen 
the  dust  in  the  air.  The  odors  grew  heavy  and  stifling. 
Children  lay  dead  asleep  on  the  floor,  babies  everywhere 


BLIND  189 

rolled  underfoot.  The  talking,  shouting  and  laughing 
filled  the  whole  place  with  a  steady  roar,  and  endlessly 
various  parts  of  the  throng  would  surge  towards  the  open 
baggage  room  door.  But  the  room  inside  was  already 
full ;  and  so  in  the  doorway,  throwing  them  back,  stood  a 
doughty  little  official  with  broad  stocky  shoulders  and 
black  moustache.  He  was  French,  but  he  talked  many 
languages. 

"Ze  towair  of  Babelle,  c'est  moi !"  he  shouted  gayly  into 
our  ears.  "I  have  stood  in  thees  place  eleven  year! 
Regardez  done,  I  am  still  alive !  Booh !"  he  cried  to  a  rag 
ing  old  woman  who  charged  down  upon  him.  He  snapped 
his  fingers  in  her  face.  "You  are  a  writair?  Shut  your 
eyes !  Write  anything  you  can  imagine,  monsieur !  For  if 
it  has  not  happened  here  already  it  will  do  so !  They  are 
mad!  These  people  are  insane!  They  have  been  out  of 
bed  since  two  in  the  morning.  The  floor,  it  is  tipping 
under  their  feet.  They  have  had  no  food,  and  they  have 
been  pushed!  So!"  And  he  sent  an  indignant  Swede 
staggering  back  into  the  crowd.  "They  have  been  asked 
each  moment  questions  that  to  them  seemed  utterly  mad ! 
And  to  their  own  questions  nobody  replies!  Bah!"  he 
shouted  to  three  small  Italians  who  were  clamoring  in 
his  ears.  He  clapped  his  hands  and  winked  at  them 
impressively;  then  he  turned  back  with  a  shrug: 

"But  they  are  courageous  people,  madame!"  he 
declared  to  Dorothy.  "To  sell  all  you  have  and  go  to  a 
world  you  have  heard  is  full  of  frightful  Indians!  But 
they  come!  They  are  like  that!  Then  why  keep  one  of 
them  out  of  your  land?  If  they  have  diseases  what  does 
it  matter?  Have  you  not  diseases  waiting  for  them 
in  your  slums?  If  they  have  not  all  their  legs  and 
arms,  what  does  it  matter?  Have  you  not  the  Peetsburg 
mills  waiting  to  kill  them?  Quoi  done?"  he  screamed  to 
a  dusky  mother  who  rushed  up  with  a  brood  of  children. 


190  BLIND 

"Ah !  It  is  Armenian !"  He  talked  to  her  hard  and  fast  in 
her  tongue.  "You  see  ?  She  has  lost  both  her  ticket  and 
money!  It  is  somewhere  on  the  floor!" 

"Oh  but  can't  anything  be  done?  Can't  it  be  found?" 
cried  Dorothy. 

"Can  it  be  found?  Can  the  ocean  be  asked  to  step  to 
one  side  while  we  look  upon  the  bottom,  madame?" 

Both  hands  pressed  to  her  temples,  the  thin  woman 
moaning  rushed  away. 

"I  tell  you  I  propose  to  find  that  woman's  money!"  my 
cousin  exclaimed;  and  she  darted  away  into  he  crowd. 
I  followed,  but  as  I  seized  her  arm  she  gave  a  little  scream 
of  joy  and  dived  down  into  the  mob.  There  were  the 
tickets  and  money,  quite  safe — pinned  tight  to  the  small 
pantaloons  of  the  woman's  oldest  boy !  She  had  forgotten ! 
At  sight  of  them  now  the  immigrant  mother  fell  on  her 
knees  and  hugged  my  cousin's  skirt  in  a  frenzy.  And 
while  she  and  Dorothy  happily  cried,  the  Frenchman 
turned  to  me  with  a  shrug  that  almost  lifted  him  from  the 
floor. 

"Did  I  not  tell  you?  Quite  insane!  .  .  .  But  let  them 
in!"  he  continued.  "With  their  children  let  them  into  your 
land !  For  they  shall  grow  up  and  make  a  new  life !  Let 
them  forget,  let  them  start  again!  I  have  no  use  for 
things  of  the  past,  or  books  or  creeds  that  are  behind! 
Or  drinks!  I  mix  my  own,  monsieur!  Let  all  these 
people  mix  their  own !  They  will  go  up  or  they  will  go 
down,  but  they  will  have  new  lives,  monsieur!" 

Before  we  left  the  Island  we  went  back  to  the  main 
hall,  climbed  to  the  visitors'  gallery  and  stood  a  moment 
looking  down.  A  new  multitude  pressed  forward;  the 
human  river  still  flowed  on.  And  as  we  watched  that  field 
of  colors,  felt  all  those  excited  hopes  rising  to  the  flag 
above,  the  hand  of  my  companion  tightened  slowly  on 
my  arm,  in  a  manner  that  reminded  me  of  the  labor 
pageant  years  before.  And  Dorothy's  lips  were  tight  com- 


BLIND  191 

pressed;  on  her  face  was  a  smile  that  was  half  of  pain. 
For  here  was  one  of  the  grandest  sights  that  we  had  seen 
or  would  ever  see;  part  of  the  endless  throng  of  millions 
who  from  all  corners  of  Europe,  afoot  and  in  wagons,  on 
trains  and  ships,  day  and  night  on  land  and  sea  kept  corn 
ing,  coming  through  the  years.  ...  A  faint  shrill  little 
laugh  rose  out  of  it  all.  It  came  from  a  chubby  red-jack 
eted  urchin  perched  on  the  broad  shoulder  of  a  sturdy  gray 
old  man.  The  boy  was  pulling  his  grandfather's  ear.  The 
latter  looked  up  with  a  quick  smile,  and  then  as  the  long 
dense  line  moved  forward  just  a  step,  he  turned  his  face 
to  the  gate  ahead. 

"How  much  money  have  you  got?  Where  are  you 
from  ?  Where  are  you  going?" 

"To  the  mills  and  factories,  the  tenements,  the  crowded 
streets,  the  docks,  the  railroads  and  the  mines,  the  prairies 
and  the  mountains.  We  will  do  the  rough  work  of  your 
land.  And  some  will  be  killed  and  all  will  die.  But  our 
children's  children  and  yours  will  be  friends." 

5. 

My  cousin  was  not  the  only  one  who  held  me  back  from 
middle  age.  My  old  companion,  Tommy  McCrea,  was 
growing  at  an  astonishing  speed;  and  his  deep  voice  was 
beginning  to  change,  jumping  from  bass  to  high  falsetto. 
But  he  was  the  same  eager  lovable  kid  who  had  pulled  me 
out  of  my  former  gloom;  and  his  fresh  new  attack  on 
life  was  as  keen  a  joy  to  me  as  before.  I  took  him  on  little 
trips  to  New  York,  to  the  Hippodrome,  the  Aquarium, 
and  now  and  then  to  a  game  at  New  Haven.  Already 
Tommy  was  "strong  for  Yale."  But  now,  in  the  summer 
of  1914,  the  atmosphere  of  Tommy's  home  grew  pregnant 
with  the  consciousness  of  a  great  event  about  to  happen. 
He  was  going  away  to  school.  In  June  he  had  completed 
his  course  in  the  village  school  nearby;  and  as  the  only 
available  high  school  in  the  neighborhood  appeared  to  be 


192  BLIND 

a  poor  affair,  his  mother  had  reluctantly  decided  to  send 
the  boy  away.  Poor  Tommy  took  the  news  very  hard.  He 
loved  the  life  in  this  home  in  the  hills  and  begged  her  to 
let  him  stay.  Gone  were  all  his  dreams  of  Yale. 

"I've  got  all  the  educating  I  need  out  of  regular 
classes,"  he  declared.  "I  want  to  be  a  farmer." 

"Then,"  said  Lucy  cheerfully,  "you  must  go  to  an  agri 
cultural  college." 

At  this  he  discarded  a  farmer's  career,  and  in  the  weeks 
that  followed  he  announced  one  ambition  after  another. 
He  wanted  to  be  a  carpenter,  an  "expert  saw-mill  man 
ager,"  a  veterinary  doctor,  a  "chauffeur  for  nervous  peo 
ple."  In  brief,  he  put  up  a  plucky  fight — and  when  at  last 
he  knew  he  was  beaten,  it  was  with  a  grim  fortitude  that 
he  faced  the  unknown  world  ahead.  He  kept  his  troubles 
to  himself.  But  when  I  came  out  in  July,  in  the  welcome 
that  he  gave  me  there  was  an  anxious  eagerness  that  led 
to  some  long  serious  talks,  in  which  I  described  my  own 
days  at  school  and  gave  a  deal  of  sage  advice.  As  he  lis 
tened,  his  brown  eyes  at  times  gleamed  with  anticipations, 
but  again  an  exceedingly  forlorn  and  homesick  look  crept 
into  them. 

"It's  pretty  tough  to  be  fourteen,"  said  poor  old 
Tommy  gruffly.  "An  it's  worse  than  that.  I  look 
sixteen.  I'm  so  darned  tall." 

He  had  always  been  proud  of  his  height  before;  he  had 
carefully  measured  himself  as  he  grew.  But  now  in  the 
evenings  there  came  times  when  this  ungainly  big  little 
boy,  all  tanned  and  freckled  and  hardened  and  scarred  by 
the  out  of  door  life  that  he  loved,  would  linger  awkwardly 
over  his  goodnight  to  his  mother;  and  it  was  hard  for 
Lucy  then  to  stick  to  her  plan  for  him. 

Toward  the  end  of  July,  one  evening  we  motored  over 
to  Seven  Pines.  Dorothy  was  on  a  visit  out  west,  but  Ed 
had  arrived  with  his  wife  and  children,  and  after  supper 
there  was  a  big  time.  For  remembering  that  hilarious 


BLIND  193 

party  nearly  twenty  years  before,  I  had  fixed  up  some 
tennis  balls  with  phosphorous.  In  the  deepening  dark, 
luminous  they  flew  back  and  forth ;  and  the  game  was  fast 
and  furious,  with  piercing  cries  and  yowls  of  glee  from 
Tommy  and  his  cousins. 

It  was  interrupted  for  a  time  by  the  arrival  of  my 
father.  He  had  come  over  from  his  mills  to  give  us  a 
rumor  he  had  heard  of  impending  trouble  overseas.  Aus 
tria  and  Serbia.  An  ultimatum — perhaps  a  war.  It  did 
not  seem  very  ominous.  Dad  saw  the  chance  of  complica 
tions,  but  it  was  so  far  away.  Still,  the  word  "War"  had 
a  magic  sound.  It  brought  Tommy  and  his  cousins  close 
about  us  listening  hard.  How  potent  was  race  feeling  in 
these  sensible  modern  times?  My  father  thought  it  was 
still  pretty  strong;  he  cited  the  race  quarrels  and  brawls 
among  the  workers  in  his  mills.  I  replied  with  a  picture 
of  Ellis  Island  as  Dorothy  and  I  had  seen  it  only  a  few 
months  before.  In  that  host  of  immigrants,  face  feeling 
had  seemed  small  indeed,  lost  in  the  gigantic  hope  for 
happier  and  more  prosperous  lives.  In  this  my  aunt  sup 
ported  me,  and  between  us  we  soon  carried  the  day.  In 
a  half  an  hour  the  war  was  over  and  the  tennis  game 
went  on. 

But  on  the  way  home  that  evening,  Tommy  sat  beside 
me ;  and  it  soon  grew  plain  that  he  had  plunged  into  one 
of  the  thinking  spells  which  he  had  often  in  these  days. 
I  asked  him  what  it  was  about. 

"Ellis  Island,"  he  replied,  and  his  voice  had  a  solemn 
tone.  "I  went  there  once  with  Aunt  Dorothy,  too — and 
I  got  a  queer  new  feeling  there — never  had  it  before." 
He  paused,  then  added  slowly,  "I  get  exactly  the  same 
kind — of  a  feeling  now — when  I  think  about  school." 

Casually  I  dropped  my  hand  upon  his  bony  shoulder; 
I  drew  him  a  bit  closer,  and  we  talked  of  school  for  a 
time — until  the  spell  was  over. 

But  after  I  had  gone  to  bed,  the  picture  came  again  to 


194  BLIND 

me.  Half  waking  and  half  in  my  dream,  I  saw  again 
that  human  sea  tumultuous  with  bobbing  heads  and 
quick  excited  gestures,  bright  vivid  colors  everywhere; 
I  heard  that  harsh  and  thrilling  roar  making  the  very 
air  alive  with  hopes  and  fears,  uncertainties — the  feel 
ings  Tommy  had  about  school.  I  had  again  the  con 
sciousness  of  countless  places  left  behind— old  world 
cities,  ancient  towns  and  bleak  little  villages — with  grim 
oppression,  hopeless  toil,  heavy  taxes  and  the  loss  of 
sons  forced  into  conscript  armies.  I  felt  again  the  deep 
tremendous  passion  of  hope  in  the  new  free  world.  And 
in  my  sleep  I  dreamed  that  night,  in  the  most  out 
landish  dazzling  ways,  of  how  in  a  world  of  the  future 
this  hope  of  all  peoples  would  be  fulfilled. 


CHAPTER  XI 

1. 

IN  the  next  few  years,  I  have  no  doubt,  there  will  be 
Cook's  tours  innumerable  to  European  battlefields;  and 
this  will  be  called  "Seeing  the  War."  But  the  blinding- 
vast  tornado,  with  the  deep  changes  that  it  wrought,  will 
really  not  be  seen  at  all  till  a  generation  or  two  have 
gone  and  other  turbulent  events  have  taken  place  upon 
the  earth.  God  pity  the  poor  devils  who  have  to  write  its 
history  now. 

But  while  I  have  been  working  in  this  room  alone  at 
night,  gradually  I  have  grown  aware  of  the  presence 
close  about  me  of  many  silent  monitors,  who  seem  to  ask, 
"How  honestly  can  this  American  friend  of  ours  write 
about  his  country?"  They  are  men  I  knew  in  Germany, 
in  France  and  England,  Russia — meeting  them  along  the 
path  my  own  little  life  made  through  the  war.  And  they 
have  come  so  close  to  me  that  almost  imperceptibly  I 
have  found  myself  writing  for  them.  We  have  been  a 
strange  little  group  in  this  room — some  of  us  rich  and 
others  poor;  some  of  us  warm  and  comfortable,  others 
frozen  and  half  starved;  some  of  us  living,  others  dead 
— who  together  have  tried  to  look  back  through  the 
war  into  the  long  years  behind.  We  have  taken  up  my 
story  first;  and  though  it  is  not  finished  yet,  it  is  the 
turn  of  these  others  now.  More  and  more  they  will  come 
in.  I  wish  I  had  known  them  better  and  could  set  down 
their  full  stories  here;  but  our  meetings  were  so  brief, 
in  the  midst  of  such  exciting  scenes,  that  I  have  the 
merest  fragments.  These  I  shall  piece  together,  and  in 
the  coming  chapters  try  to  confine  my  memories  to  my 

195 


196  BLIND 

meetings  with  these  men,  and  to  the  way  that  some  of 
them  have  affected  my  own  life  and  the  lives  of  other 
people  already  familiar  in  this  book. 


2. 

The  war  at  first  seemed  far  away.  I  was  still  with; 
Steve  and  Lucy  in  their  home  in  the  Connecticut  hills — 
one  of  millions  of  those  quiet  spots,  scattered  all  over 
the  face  of  the  globe,  into  which  the  great  winds  in  their 
rising  sent  the  merest  breath  of  alarm.  One  could  picture 
such  scenes  innumerable — the  stopping  of  the  daily  train 
at  a  lonely  jungle  station  down  in  the  heart  of  Africa, 
the  meeting  of  two  caravans  on  a  silent  desert  of  the 
East.  ...  I  remember  a  lovely  afternoon  on  a  terrace 
of  the  hillside.  Under  the  trees  before  the  house  some 
patients  were  discussing  whether  England  would  go  in. 
One  was  reading  aloud  from  a  paper.  He  finished  and 
the  voices  grew  animated  for  a  time.  Then  a  portly  old 
citizen  glanced  at  his  watch.  It  was  time  for  him  to 
work  in  the  garden.  He  had  his  nerves  to  think  about. 
After  his  departure  the  discussion  was  renewed.  A  tall 
thin  manufacturer  of  picture  post  cards,  from  Detroit, 
was  in  a  pitiable  state.  The  poor  man  had  come  here 
for  a  rest,  but  there  was  little  rest  in  his  anxious  face. 
The  picture  post  card  business  was  international,  he 
explained,  and  the  war  would  play  the  mischief  with — 
but  here  our  attention  was  drawn  from  his  plight  to  that 
of  a  large  florid  dame  who  from  hour  to  hour  was  work 
ing  up  a  fine  case  of  nerves.  Her  daughter  with  a 
chaperon  was  over  in  Hanover  studying  German.  The 
German  spoken  in  Hanover,  she  tearfully  explained  to 
us,  was  supposed  to  be  the  very  best  and  purest  in  the 
world.  Oh  dear!  What  was  happening  to  the  poor  girl 
now?  A  quiet  wiry  little  man,  whose  hair  was  gray  at 
forty,  kept  telling  her  not  to  worry.  He  seemed  the  most 
unconcerned  of  the  group,  He  was  a  broker  in  New 


BLIND  197 

York.  Things  were  very  wild  on  the  market  and  he 
was  leaving  to  go  back.  Presently  his  car  came  up  and 
his  luggage  was  brought  out  from  the  house.  He  said 
goodbye  to  the  people  there,  then  strolled  to  his  car 
and  got  into  it.  We  watched  it  slide  heavily  down  the 
hill.  In  the  next  three  years,  as  I  happened  to  learn, 
this  chap  made  several  million  dollars.  Later  he  was 
killed  in  France. 

Aunt  Amelia  came  over  for  supper  that  night.  She 
wanted  to  get  the  latest  news  and  "talk  it  over  thor-, 
oughly."  She  was  deeply  disturbed  and  indignant  about 
it.  "A  perfectly  awful  butchery,  without  rhyme  or 
reason!"  she  declared.  She  spoke  of  the  war  she  had 
seen  as  a  girl  and  recounted  some  of  the  horrors — the 
price.  That  had  at  least  been  worth  the  price;  a  great 
ideal  had  been  at  stake.  But  what  this  terrible  struggle 
was  for  she  could  not  for  the  life  of  her  make  out. 

"If  it  does  come  about,"  she  said,  "there  is  just  one 
thing  for  us  to  do — keep  perfectly  friendly  to  both  sides 
and  help  bring  peace  as  soon  as  we  can.  Larry,"  she 
demanded,  "what  do  those  socialist  friends  of  yours  mean 
by  not  putting  a  stop  to  this  ?  I  should  think  they  would 
be  ashamed  to  look  each  other  in  the  face!  After  all 
they  have  said  about  brotherhood — and  the  rights  of  the 
common  people!  The  common  people  don't  want  this 
war " 

"They're  beginning  to,"  I  said,  and  I  read  to  her 
descriptions  of  surging  crowds  in  city  streets,  and  a 
million  little  village  groups  of  men  excitedly  talking, 
talking,  singing  patriotic  songs.  .  .  .  Aunt  Amelia  rose 
to  leave. 

"I  am  going  home,"  she  said  solemnly,  "to  thank  God 
we  are  out  of  this !" 

I  went  over  to  stay  with  her  for  a  while,  for  Dorothy 
was  still  out  west.  The  next  afternoon  I  motored  over 
to  my  father's  mills,  and  found  him  very  busy  there. 


198  BLIND 

Work  had  been  thrown  into  confusion  by  the  unexpected 
loss  of  several  hundred  workingmen — Hungarians, 
Poles,  Bohemians,  Germans,  Scotch  and  English/leaving 
now  by  every  train.  With  a  grim  smile  Dad  said  to  me, 
"This  seems  to  be  the  answer  to  that  socialist  bugaboo. 
Here  were  these  fellows  a  few  days  ago  thinking  of 
nothing  but  hours  and  wages — how  to  give  the  least 
possible  service  for  the  highest  possible  pay.  But  look 
at  'em  now.  It's  a  miracle."  An  uncertain  expression 
crept  over  his  face.  "Not  that  I  like  it — understand. 
I  tell  you  this  war  is  letting  loose  more  than  most 
people  have  any  idea  of." 

"Yes,"  I  said.  All  through  those  days  I  had  had  a 
sense  of  the  solid  earth  heaving  under  me.  But  when 
that  night  I  went  to  the  station  and  stood  there  while  a 
train  pulled  out,  with  a  score  of  young  workingmen 
shouting  goodbyes,  while  their  women  and  children 
waved  and  cheered  and  some  of  them  cried— I  felt  the 
first  big  tug  of  the  war. 

'Til  have  to  get  over  and  see  it,"  I  thought;  and  at 
once  I  began  to  plan  for  the  trip.  No  doubt  my  old 
paper  would  send  me.  The  only  real  difficulty  was  time. 
The  fighting  no  doubt  would  be  over  by  Christmas,  and 
I  had  a  play  which  was  just  about  to  go  into  rehearsal. 
Perhaps  I  could  hurry  it  a  bit.  The  only  snag  was  my 
fourth  act.  I  decided  to  tackle  that  at  once.  And  so  for 
the  next  day  or  two  I  shut  myself  up  at  Seven  Pines  and 
wrestled  with  my  heroine. 


3. 

And  then  the  distant  war  abroad  struck  into  our 
family. 

Aunt  Amelia  came  up  to  my  room,  and  with  a  sharp 
resolute  effort  to  keep  her  trembling  voice  in  control, 
she  read  a  special  delivery  letter  that  had  just  arrived. 
Dorothy  had  been  visiting  the  Colorado  cousin  in  whose 


BLIND  109 

little  mining  town  I  had  gathered  the  material  long  ago 
for  "Underground."  There  she  had  met  again  my  old 
friend  Max  Sonfeldt,  whose  acquaintance  she  had  made 
on  the  opening  night  of  my  play  in  New  York.  Since 
then,  while  in  my  giddy  career  I  had  leaped  about  from 
pillar  to  post,  Sonfeldt  had  gone  steadily  on  with  his 
one  idea,  his  dogged  crusade  against  the  deadly  gases  in 
American  mines  and  mills.  Largely  through  his  efforts 
the  lives  of  thousands  had  been  saved.  And  the  deep 
sincerity  of  the  man,  that  had  kept  him  a  lonely  figure 
traveling  all  over  the  land,  had  evidently  made  its  appeal 
to  my  impulsive  warm  hearted  young  cousin,  who  treas 
ured  still  the  memory  of  her  own  industrial  work  and 
was  eager  now,  she  wrote,  "to  stop  this  eternal  gadding 
about  and  try  to  make  my  life  really  count."  She  went 
on  to  speak  of  his  big  ideals,  his  kindliness,  "his  pathetic 
delight  in  finding  somebody  who  treated  him  as  a  man 
with  a  life  of  his  own,  something  more  than  a  chemical 
engineer."  He  had  had  almost  no  women  friends.  She 
had  found  him  hungry  to  talk  with  her  of  German 
music,  which  he  loved.  They  had  that  in  common,  and  a 
whole  lot  of  other  things.  There  was  more  in  the  letter 
that  I  forget.  It  came  down  to  this — that  because  he 
had  saved  thousands  of  lives — "with  barely  any  recog 
nition" — and  yet  had  had  no  life  of  his  own,  and  was  now 
suddenly  called  back  home  to  his  Fatherland,  perhaps  to 
die — this  queer  affair  had  suddenly  come  to  a  swift 
dramatic  climax  which  had  swept  her  off  her  feet,  He 
had  proposed — she  had  spent  a  sleepless  night  deciding 
— then  had  found  she  loved  him  and  was  "too  happy  for 
any  words."  They  had  already  started  east  and  would 
reach  home  on  the  following  day,  stop  just  long  enough 
to  be  married,  and  then  sail  for  Germany ! 

Here  was  a  pretty  kettle  of  fish !  I  had  never  realized 
till  now  what  Dorothy  had  meant  to  me,  and  it  came 
over  me  in  a  flash  that  I  was  responsible  for  this.  I  had 


200  BLIND 

given  her  those  ideas;  it  was  through  me  she  had  met 
this  man.  Instantly  I  forgot  his  good  points.  What  an 
infernally  selfish  brute  to  want  to  take  her  over  there ! 

"How  can  she  be  in  love  with  him?  I  don't  believe 
she  is !"  I  cried. 

"Oh  Larry,"  said  my  distracted  aunt,  "the  older  I  get 
the  less  I'm  surprised  at  the  marriages  that  do  take 
place!" 

Together  we  tried  to  picture  Dorothy  living  in  Berlin 
— but  all  Europe  to  our  eyes  went  suddenly  under  clouds 
of  smoke  from  which  was  heard  the  roar  of  guns.  She 
had  been  such  a  warm  blithe  lovable  girl,  and  such  an 
intimate  part  of  this  house.  It  was  as  though  the  long 
arm  of  the  war  were  suddenly  reaching  down  into  the 
very  foundation  stones  of  this  peaceable  old  building, 
making  it  quiver  with  alarm.  Gone  was  Aunt  Amelia's 
hope  of  our  keeping  friendly  to  both  sides — for  already 
this  news  had  fanned  into  flame  the  vague  instinctive 
feelings  that  had  been  in  me  from  the  start  against  the 
German  side  of  it.  I  had  never  been  to  Germany — knew 
very  little  about  it,  in  fact — but  now  I  began  to  inveigh 
against  the  entire  Teuton  race,  their  pig-headed  ways, 
their  intolerance.  Then  noticing  the  anxiety  in  Aunt 
Amelia's  restless  eyes,  I  grew  grimly  practical. 

"We  must  nip  this  thing  right  in  the  bud.  You  must 
stop  her,"  I  declared.  "She  won't  marry  without  your 
consent " 

"Larry,"  said  Aunt  Amelia  sharply,  "when  you're  old 
as  I  am,  I  hope  you  will  have  succeeded  in  getting  a 
little  American  breadth  of  view  and  a  sense  of  the  rights 
of  others!  Dorothy's  marriage  is  her  affair!  She's  not 
a  child — she's  twenty-nine!" 

"You  mean  to  say  you  won't  even- " 

"Talk  to  her?  Of  course  I  will!  But  if  she  really 
loves  the  man  and  feels  it's  her  duty  and  her  choice  to 
go  with  him,  then  most  certainly  I  shall  give  her  my 


BLIND  201 

consent!  And  help  her — make  it  easier!"  Again  with 
a  quick  anxious  frown  she  seemed  to  be  trying  to  picture 
Dorothy  over  there  in  Berlin.  She  gave  it  up  and  came 
back  to  the  present :  'The  first  thing  is  to  do  as  she  asks 
in  her  letter — arrange  about  the  license.  I  wish  you 
would  attend  to  that." 

I  agreed  and  went  to  Steve's  father;  and  with  the  old 
minister  I  arranged  for  the  marriage  I  hoped  would  not 
take  place.  Meanwhile  Steve  and  Lucy  had  been  sum 
moned  to  Seven  Pines.  From  every  angle  we  discussed 
Dorothy's  wild  decision  and  ways  and  means  to  induce 
her  to  change  it.  If  she  insisted  on  marrying,  at  least 
we  hoped  to  keep  her  here. 

"How  about  her  passport?"  said  Steve.  "The  chances 
are  she  can't  get  it  in  time  to  go  with  the  Dutchman 
anyhow." 

"You  don't  know  him,"  I  gloomily  answered.  "These 
Germans  think  of  everything." 

And  in  fact,  when  the  couple  arrived,  it  developed  he 
had  seen  to  that. 

Dorothy  seemed  to  me  strikingly  changed.  Though  she 
looked  older,  stronger,  with  a  determined  set  expression 
— she  was  plainly  disturbed  and  excited,  and  trying 
bravely  to  fight  down  the  dread  with  which  she  faced  the 
unknown.  In  the  hall  she  drew  me  aside,  and  with  a 
swift  appealing  flash  in  her  vivid  blue  eyes  she  whis 
pered, 

"Remember,  Larry  dearest,  I'm  counting  on  you  to 
see  me  through!  Help  me  with  mother — with  them  all! 
And  be  friends  with  Max!  I'm  counting  on  you!" 

"Oh,  Dorothy!  Are  you  sure  of  this?"  Before  she 
could  answer,  her  mother  was  there.  She  went  up  to  her 
mother's  room;  and  when  they  emerged  from  that  long 
talk  the  eyes  of  both  were  suspiciously  bright.  Aunt 
Amelia,  having  argued  in  vain,  was  so  resolute  in  her 
efforts  to  show  Dorothy  we  were  back  of  her  still,  and 


202  BLIND 

to  make  this  day  "a  happy  time,"  that  we  all  tried  to 
fall  in  with  her  wishes.  With  a  busy  obvious  cheerful 
ness  we  were  making  the  best  of  it  now.  As  I  welcomed 
Sonfeldt  into  the  family — rather  awkwardly  calling  him 
"Max" — I  told  myself  I  had  been  unfair.  Here  was  a 
man  whose  life  so  far  certainly  put  my  own  to  shame. 
"How  she  must  compare  us,"  I  could  not  help  thinking 
bitterly.  But  I  threw  it  off.  Could  he  make  her  happy? 
"That's  none  of  my  business!  Her  mind  is  made  up, 
and  I've  got  to  help  her  put  this  through!  .  .  .  What  a 
decent  looking  chap  he  is!" 

Since  I  had  last  seen  him,  although  his  slender  figure 
looked  no  older  than  before,  grayish  streaks  had  come  in 
his  hair,  and  his  thin  dark  sensitive  face  looked  more 
intense,  more  deeply  lined.  In  his  eager  smile,  his  kindly 
eyes,  I  could  see  he  was  doing  his  best  to  be  friendly. 
But  he  was  in  an  unsettled  state.  One  moment  he  would 
anxiously  try  to  make  us  feel  that  he  realized  how  hard 
it  was  for  a  girl  to  be  torn  away  from  her  home;  and 
awkwardly  and  earnestly  he  would  speak  of  his  love  for 
Dorothy.  Then  abruptly  his  face  would  contract  and  he 
would  grow  as  anxiously  absorbed  in  the  effort  to  make 
us  see  that  his  Fatherland  was  in  the  right.  He  was 
talking  now  to  Steve  and  me,  for  the  women  had  gone 
with  Dorothy  upstairs  to  help  in  her  packing.  He  assured 
us  that  the  war  would  be  brief. 

"A  few  weeks — months  at  most,"  he  said.  Then  he 
looked  up  with  a  quick  smile.  "I  want  you  fellows  to 
understand  how  we  Germans  feel.  Just  think  of  my 
case.  One  week  ago  I  was  a  man  doing  all  that  he  could 
to  save  human  life.  Now  I  shall  work  as  hard  to  destroy 
it.  Why,  you  may  ask — and  I  reply,  it  is  because  it 
must  be  so.  Until  there  is  order  in  the  world,  war  will 
continue  to  occur.  And  there  is  still  such  confusion  in 
these  blind  industrial  days,  that  if  you  are  honest  you 
must  admit  that  the  facts  of  peace  are  perhaps  as  ugly 


BLIND  203 

as  those  of  war.  In  your  industries  over  five  hundred 
thousand  are  either  killed  or  injured  or  badly  poisoned 
every  year.  Peace  has  its  bitter  passions,  too.  Not  only 
here  but  in  Europe,  strikes  break  out  and  every  year 
they  have  become  more  ominous.  And  peace  develops 
selfishness — men  whose  only  aim  in  life  is  to  get  money 
for  themselves.  For  their  country  they  are  not  ready  to 
make  the  smallest  sacrifice.  But  in  war  these  very  men 
will  soon  be  so  profoundly  changed  that  they  will  cheer 
fully  give  their  lives.  For  while  in  peace  their  bodies 
have  grown  soft,  their  spirits  small,  in  war  they  are 
given  strength  and  courage  and  devotion  to  ideals.  They 
are  taught  cooperation." 

"They  are  taught  blind  obedience,  too,"  I  retorted. 
"All  the  independence  in  a  man  is  rooted  out.  In  your 
country  that  is  so,  even  in  time  of  peace,  I  hear.  You 
have  no  democracy."  His  face  lit  up. 

"One  moment !"  he  cried.  "Have  you  any  real  democ 
racy  here?" 

"We  think  we  have!" 

"But  do  you  know  what  democracy  really  means?" 

"We  think  we  do!" 

"Hold  on,  Larry,"  Steve  put  in,  for  I  was  getting 
decidedly  warm.  "Look  here — Max,"  he  said  to  the 
German,  "can't  you  fellows  understand  that  it's  just  by 
taking  such  a  tone  you  antagonize  us  over  here?" 

"Please!  I  don't  mean  to  antagonize!"  The  man's 
dark  sensitive  quivering  face  was  strained  and  eager 
again  in  appeal.  "God  knows  we  want  you  for  our 
friends — and  there  is  much  that  is  wonderful  and  splen 
did  in  your  country!  But  have  you  real  democracy?" 
In  spite  of  himself  he  returned  to  his  point.  "Do  the 
people — all  the  people — really  rule  America?  No!  They 
will  even  laugh  and  tell  you  themselves,  'Our  politics  are 
rotten!'  When  they  say  Democracy  they  mean  Indi 
vidual  Liberty !  All  that  every  American  asks  is  that  his 


204  BLIND 

government  let  him  alone — in  the  making  of  money  for 
himself,  regardless  of  the  good  of  all.  And  this  is  no 
longer  possible!  To  allow  him  his  freedom  is  the  same 
as  to  permit  one  little  cog  or  piston  in  some  great  machine 
to  jump  out  of  place  and  do  as  it  likes — the  result  is 
instant  chaos !  And  so  I  say  you  have  your  choice.  You 
must  either  follow  Germany  and  advance  with  civiliza 
tion — which  means  that  every  one  of  you  must  become  a 
willing  cog  in  your  national  machine — or  else  you  must 
follow  Tolstoi  back  into  a  peasant's  hut." 

"Give  me  Russia !"  I  put  in,  but  he  did  not  hear  me. 
He  stopped  abruptly,  controlled  himself  and  went  on 
with  a  deepening  earnestness : 

"But  I  would  not  have  you  think  me  blind  to  the  good 
in  other  countries.  I  have  no  use  for  what  some  fools 
are  preaching  now  in  Germany.  As  every  scientist 
should  be,  I  am  an  internationalist.  The  good  of  all 
humanity,  the  world-wide  brotherhood,  is  my  goal.  But 
what  is  the  only  practical  plan  for  assuring  such  a  peace 
of  the  world?  If  you  honestly  face  the  facts,  the  first 
step  is  a  group  of  nations  strong  enough  to  control  the 
rest.  Only  so  can  we  avoid  the  two  big  perils  confront 
ing  mankind.  One  is  the  deepening  menace  of  revolu 
tion  from  below.  The  other  is  the  danger  that  the  mul 
titudes  in  the  East  will  rise  united  under  Japan  and 
sweep  west  like  the  Huns  of  old.  Against  these  two  big 
dangers,  in  Germany  at  least  we  saw  that  the  only  prac 
tical  safeguard  lay  in  a  close  union  between  the  three 
most  powerful  nations — the  German  and  British 
Empires  and  your  great  United  States.  We  could  have 
sat  around  one  table  and  controlled  the  rest  of  the  earth. 
And  the  reason  why  we  Germans  feel  so  bitter  against 
England  now,  is  that  she  has  destroyed  the  chance  of 
that  immense  alliance.  She  has  betrayed  not  only  us 
but  the  entire  civilized  world!  Dearly  she  will  pay  for 


BLIND  205 

her  crime!  And  in  her  ruin  men  will  learn  that  indi 
vidual  liberty,  in  the  narrow  British  sense,  has  become  a 
thing  of  the  past!  For  her  system — every  man  for  him 
self — is  so  rotten  to  the  core,  that  she  will  blunder  to 
her  doom !  She  can  by  no  possible  chance  prevail  against 
the  sure  scientific  cooperation  which  is  ours !" 

As  he  talked  on,  his  face  grew  pale.  To  my  biting 
interjections  he  paid  little  or  no  heed.  So  engrossed  had 
he  become  in  his  defence  of  the  Fatherland,  he  did  not 
even  notice  that  Dorothy  and  her  mother  and  Lucy  had 
come  into  the  room  and  were  sitting  motionless  there. 
The  atmosphere  of  this  quiet  room,  long  so  familiar  to 
us  all,  had  filled  with  an  emotional  tensity  it  had  never 
known — as  though  all  the  bitter  passions  of  Europe,  and 
the  quarrels  ages  old,  were  crowding  hotly,  fiercely  in. 
I  looked  at  Aunt  Amelia.  Her  alert  and  anxious  eyes, 
now  turning  to  the  German  and  now  to  her  daughter's 
face,  revealed  to  me  her  desperate  effort  to  think  clearly, 
quickly,  to  grasp  it  all  and  understand — not  Germany's 
purpose  in  the  war  but  Dorothy 's  life  in  Germany. 
What  chance  of  safety,  happiness?  I  could  see  a  wave 
of  bewilderment  sweep  over  her.  What  a  bridegroom! 
"Has  he  completely  forgotten  his  bride?"  she  seemed  to 
demand  indignantly.  Steve's  father  appeared  in  the 
doorway,  with  his  Bible  in  his  hand.  And  after  one 
quick  look  of  dismay  from  him  to  the  German  talking 
on,  she  rose  and  said  in  a  trembling  voice  which  tried 
to  be  brisk  and  cheerful, 

"This  is  deeply,  deeply  interesting.  But  I  think  we  had 
better  leave  it  now — at  least  for  a  few  moments — Max 
— and  think  about  getting  married,  my  dears," 

He  looked  up  in  a  startled  fashion,  as  though  he  had 
been  far  away.  Then  he  smiled,  and  with  a  drop  in  his 
voice  said  quietly, 

"Yes — you  are  quite  right." 


206  BLIND 

What  a  very  foreign  foreigner.  Did  Dorothy  feel 
what  we  were  thinking?  Probably.  When  the  wedding 
was  over  she  turned  quickly  to  her  mother  and  hugged 
her  tight  without  a  word.  But  soon  she  was  talking 
rapidly,  and  in  the  hour  that  remained  she  was  so 
desperately  eager  to  have  us  like  her  husband,  that  again 
we  were  all  doing  our  best. 

"He  does  love  her,"  I  told  myself.  "He  loves  her  in 
his  German  way.  And  though  I  don't  like  his  way  I've 
got  to  make  up  my  mind  to  this  and  do  as  she  says — 
be  friends  with  him." 

I  got  on  with  him  better  now.  I  could  feel  her  closely 
watching  us,  while  she  talked  with  Lucy  and  Steve;  and 
once  more  before  she  left  she  managed  to  get  me  alone 
for  a  moment. 

"Will  you  come  to  Germany,  Larry?  You've  said  you 
were  going  abroad  for  your  paper.  Won't  you  come  to 
Germany,  too?" 

"Yes — I'll  come — and  as  soon  as  the  war  is  over, 
you  must  come  back.  We  want  you  here — both 
you  and  Max."  At  that  she  gripped  my  hand  very  hard 
and  whispered, 

"Thank  you,  Larry!" 

I  went  with  her  mother  the  next  day  to  the  boat  to 
see  them  off.  As  we  stood  with  them  on  the  dock,  by 
our  side  a  group  of  Germans  were  discussing  their 
chances  of  getting  safely  through  the  blockade.  Two  of 
them  had  wives  who  were  obviously  Americans.  And 
there  came  to  me  a  disturbing  sense  of  the  countless  ties 
of  birth  and  marriage  by  which  we  were  bound  to  the 
nations  at  war.  Then  sharply  I  forgot  all  that  and  sup 
ported  my  aunt  in  her  brave  attempt  to  smile  and  make 
the  best  of  this.  Just  before  the  last  goodbyes,  I  heard 
her  say  to  Dorothy : 

"I'm  sure  you  will  be  happy,  dear — true  to  the  best 


BLIND  207 

that  is  in  you — and  to  the  wonderful  country  which  is 
still  your  home,  you  know." 

4. 

Two  weeks  later  a  cable  announced  that  Dorothy  and 
her  husband  had  landed  safely  in  Holland.  But  no  letter 
reached  us  for  nearly  two  months  after  that.  Meanwhile 
my  play  had  been  produced,  and  I  had  arranged  to  go 
abroad  as  a  special  correspondent.  I  planned  to  sail  in 
a  fortnight  now,  and  being  pretty  well  worn  out  I  came 
back  for  a  week  to  Seven  Pines.  Over  at  my  sister's 
home  two  familiar  figures  were  gone.  Tommy  was  away 
at  school;  and  immersed  in  the  importance  of  his  first 
great  adventure,  he  wrote  frequent  letters  home,  in 
moods  now  homesick  and  forlorn,  now  gaily  filled  with 
school-boy  slang  or  solemnly  self-conscious.  For  him 
the  war  was  far  away.  Not  so  with  Oberookoff.  In  a 
highly  emotional  state  he  had  already  started  back  to 
Russia.  He  had  not  meant  to  go  at  first,  but  one  day 
he  had  received  a  shock  in  a  letter  from  his  mother. 
From  the  village  where  she  was  teaching  school,  she 
wrote  of  the  resistless  tides  of  patriotic  fervor  sweeping 
Holy  Russia.  She  called  upon  her  son  to  come  home. 
And  after  a  frenzy  of  packing,  excited  talk  of  great 
ideals,  tears  at  leaving,  last  goodbyes,  Oberookoff  with 
his  steel-bound  trunk  had  gone  forth  to  war  in  a  Ford, 
courageously  smiling  and  waving  his  hand. 

I  could  feel  that  Aunt  Amelia,  beneath  her  resolute 
cheerfulness,  was  having  a  terribly  difficult  time.  The 
blatant  arrogance  of  Berlin  and  the  savage  work  in  Bel 
gium  were  having  their  effect  on  her;  but  meanwhile  a 
long  letter  from  Dorothy  had  just  arrived,  anxiously 
pleading  the  German  cause,  describing  the  devotion  that 
had  swept  away  all  pettiness  and  made  life  wonderful  in 
Berlin.  "If  you  could  only  see  the  women  here!" 


208  BLIND 

"Oh  Larry,"  Aunt  Amelia  said,  "I  know  that  she  is 
writing  me  the  truth  exactly  as  she  sees  it.  That  is  just 
the  most  awful  part  of  this  war.  On  each  side  they  are 
so  sure  they  are  right  that  it's  driving  the  whole  world 
insane!  It's  awful  enough  to  see  one  side.  But  both 
sides — both  together!" 

Both  together  had  entered  her  house.  Already  she 
began  to  show  the  signs  of  the  strain  upon  her.  What 
were  the  darkening  years  to  bring?  By  instinct  she  still 
clung  to  her  faith.  Somehow  it  would  work  out  for  the 
best.  In  the  meantime,  how  to  help  her  daughter?  I  had 
told  her  of  my  promise  to  go  to  Germany  while  abroad, 
and  already  she  was  giving  me  messages  for  Dorothy.  I 
was  almost  ready  now.  And  as  the  last  days  went  by 
more  and  more  the  attention  of  the  family  centered 
on  me. 

But  again  the  unexpected  happened.  Steve  in  his 
secluded  nook,  engrossed  in  work  with  his  patients,  had 
found  but  little  time  for  the  war.  But  one  balmy  after 
noon,  while  he  and  I  were  having  a  quiet  smoke  out 
under  the  trees,  Lucy  came  hurrying  from  the  house  and 
said  that  someone  in  New  York  wanted  him  on  the  tele 
phone.  And  after  he  had  left  us,  she  confided  to  me  her 
plan.  For  nine  years  Steve  had  stuck  to  this  work ;  and 
to  continue  in  this  rut  without  ever  getting  any  change 
was  mighty  bad  for  any  man,  especially  a  scientist.  So 
with  her  old  friend,  Bannard,  and  also  with  our  father, 
both  of  whom  had  influence  in  the  American  Red  Cross, 
she  had  worked  for  an  appointment.  ...  At  this  moment 
Steve  came  back,  looking  cross  and  worried. 

"What's  the  matter,  dear?"  she  asked. 

"The  matter  is,"  her  husband  growled,  "that  Bannard 
wants  me  to  take  charge  of  one  of  our  Red  Cross  units 
abroad — in  Germany!  Of  all  places!  It  seems  the  fellow 
they  sent  over  first  is  sick  and  wants  to  be  recalled. 
Bannard  tried  to  bulldoze  me  into  getting  ready  to  start 
in  a  week !  The  man's  crazy  and  I  told  him  so !" 


BLIND  209 

"What?"  cried  Lucy  in  alarm.  He  threw  an  angry 
look  at  her. 

"This  is  your  little  party,"  he  declared.  "When  I  said 
I  wouldn't  think  of  it,  he  replied  that  he  wouldn't  take 
a  refusal  till  I'd  spoken  with  my  wife!" 

The  talk  that  followed  was  fast  and  hard.  Stirred 
with  uneasiness  at  the  chance  of  being  wrenched  away 
from  his  work,  Steve  suddenly  discovered  a  deep  and 
violent  detest  of  the  Germans  both  in  peace  and  war. 
He  had  never  liked  the  brutes,  and  now  to  traipse  over 
and  help  in  their  war — But  Lucy  sternly  cut  him  off. 
He  couldn't  get  out  of  it  like  that!  His  feeling  against 
the  Germans  was  merely  a  trumped  up  excuse  I  She  even 
remembered  hearing  him  say  that  he  hoped  the  medical 
men  at  least  would  keep  their  sanity,  not  rave  at  each 
other  like  mad  dogs.  Their  job  was  simple — to  take 
care  of  the  wounded  on  both  sides  and  keep  at  least  a 
few  young  men  alive  in  Europe  after  the  war!  Those 
had  been  his  very  words.  Moreover,  there  was  Dorothy, 
What  a  comfort  it  would  be  to  her,  to  join  with  Steve 
and  help  in  his  work  while  her  husband  was  away  at 
the  front. 

"You  mean,"  Steve  almost  shouted,  "that  I  am  to 
spend  the  rest  of  my  life  chaperoning  Dorothy?" 

"I  do  not!"  was  the  sharp  reply.  "You  know  as  well 
as  I  do  that  the  war  will  be  over  in  a  few  months " 

"I  don't  know  it\" 

"Then  you're  rather  a  fool.  Now,  Steve,  don't  be  an 
idiot.  Here  is  your  one  and  only  chance  to  see  the  most 
tremendous  thing  in  all  your  lifetime.  Don't  let  it  go  by. 
Please,  dear,  please!  Just  think  what  it  means.  You 
know  how  I  feel,  how  I'm  always  wanting  things  for 
you.  And  my  instinct  has  been  right — almost  every  time 
it  has.  This  work  you  are  doing  was  my  idea " 

"What?" 

"Oh  you  didn't  know  it,  my  love,  but  it  was  my  own 
little  plan  from  the  start.  The  wonderful  way  you  have 


210  BLIND 

built  it  up  has  made  me  very  proud  of  you.  But  Steve, 
you  have  stuck  right  here  nine  years  without  a  single 
break  or  change!" 

"All  right,  that's  the  only  reason  why  it  has  been  a 
success !  And  I'm  going  to  keep  on  sticking  here !" 

"Yes,  after  a  few  months  abroad  that  will  give  you 
a  jolt " 

"I  don't  want  a  jolt!" 

"Please,  dear,  please!  I  know  what  you  need.  And 
this  will  be  such  a  tremendous  thing — and  such  a  com 
fort  to  Dorothy — and  you  can  so  easily  get  recalled.  And 
meanwhile  Doctor  Baker" — who  was  Steve's  assistant — 
"has  been  so  thoroughly  trained  in  your  work  that  we 
can  keep  things  going  here!" 

While  he  was  still  holding  out,  I  threw  my  weight 
into  the  balance.  I  had  not  meant  to  go  to  Germany  till 
after  I  had  been  to  France,  but  now  I  proposed  to  go 
with  Steve.  Lucy  eagerly  seized  on  this  and  together  we 
began  to  talk  of  the  trip  as  though  it  were  decided. 

"I'll  admit  I  have  no  hankering  after  Germany,"  I 
said.  "But  so  long  as  one  of  them  has  come  into  the 
family,  I  guess  we'll  have  to  give  'em  a  show  and  try 
to  see  their  side  of  this." 

"It  will  be  such  a  comfort  to  Aunt  Amelia,"  Lucy 
urged,  "to  know  that  you  both  are  over  there,  if  only 
for  a  little  while." 

"And  besides,  there's  the  Russian  end  of  it.  That  ought 
to  be  interesting,"  I  said.  "I'm  a  bit  hazy  as  to  the  map, 
but  I  rather  think  this  Red  Cross  station  is  close  up  to  the 
Russian  frontier.  They'll  bring  Oberookoff  in  some  day, 
wounded  and  a  prisoner — and  while  Steve  sews  up  his 
head,  I  shall  take  his  story  down." 

"What  did  you  say  was  the  name  of  the  town?"  Ris 
ing  excitedly  to  her  feet,  Lucy  spoke  the  sentence  which 
in  those  days  was  being  uttered  all  over  our  land :  "Wait 
a  moment — I'll  get  a  map!" 


BLIND  211 

Soon  we  three  together  were  poring  over  the  map 
of  Europe.  The  end  of  it  was  that  Steve  gave  in.  He 
tried  at  first  to  reserve  the  right  to  come  back  in  three 
months  time.  This  proved  to  be  impossible,  but  by  then 
he  was  far  along  in  the  rush  of  preparations. 
I  was  busy  as  well,  and  it  was  not  till  the  day  before 
sailing  that  we  came  out  again  to  the  country.  Here 
we  were  met  by  Tommy,  who  had  been  allowed  to 
come  home.  With  a  kind  of  solemn  eagerness  he 
inspected  our  equipment,  and  he  breathed  in  envious 
tones, 

"Say,  but  you  are  lucky!    Wish  I  were  going!" 

Whereupon,  in  a  startled  way,  Lucy's  hand  closed 
on  his  arm.  Aunt  Amelia  arrived  just  then,  and  soon  she 
was  entrusting  us  with  various  letters  and  small  gifts. 
There  was  a  family  council  which  lasted  until  late  that 
night. 

The  next  day  Lucy  and  Tommy  came  to  New  York 
to  see  us  off. 

"Thank  God  it  will  soon  be  over,"  she  said.  "But  oh, 
Steve — and  Larry,  too — I'm  so  glad  you  are  going  to 
see  it!" 

Suddenly  it  came  over  me  then  that  in  spite  of  her 
love  for  her  home  in  the  hills  she  had  never  lost  our 
father's  deep  hunger  for  the  game  of  life  in  the  very 
center  of  things,  had  never  gotten  over  quite  her  keen 
disappointment  that  Steve  had  dropped  out  of  it  all.  She 
was  glad  to  have  him  in  it  again.  Standing  with  Tommy 
on  the  dock,  she  smiled  up  as  the  ship  moved  out.  Two 
more  of  the  family  going.  There  was  no  smile  on  Tom 
my's  face.  His  feelings  were  all  serious  now.  Looking 
exceedingly  young  and  small,  for  all  his  fourteen  years 
of  growth,  his  eyes  were  fixed  on  us  intently.  So  he 
stood  until  our  ship  had  moved  far  out  into  the  river. 


CHAPTER  XII 

1. 

ON  our  journey  to  Berlin  we  met  three  men  who,  like 
Dorothy's  husband,  have  often  since  come  into  this  room 
to  join  the  strange  assembly  here. 

When  Steve  and  I  reached  London,  in  a  drizzly  win 
ter's  dusk,  we  were  met  by  a  wiry  little  man,  by  birth 
half  English  and  half  Welsh,  with  sharp  black  eyes,  thin 
sandy  hair.  I  had  known  him  in  New  York,  where  he 
had  been  the  correspondent  of  a  London  paper.  And  now 
on  the  way  to  our  hotel,  in  the  frankest  possible  manner 
he  began  snapping  out  facts  about  England.  • 

"We're  in  the  most  awful  mess !"  he  declared.  But  he 
did  not  seem  in  the  least  disturbed.  His  cheerfulness  was 
something  prodigious. 

As  he  talked  I  kept  looking  out  of  the  window.  The 
narrow,  crooked,  crowded  streets  were  dark  and  dirty. 
dripping  wet,  and  only  yellow  blurs  of  light  shone  from 
the  shop  windows  on  the  shadows  hurrying  by.  Our 
taxi  abruptly  stopped  by  the  curb  to  make  way  for  some 
volunteers;  and  I  have  a  vivid  impression  still  of  one  of 
them  as  he  went  by.  An  older  man,  about  my  age,  tall 
and  lank,  in  a  golf  suit,  his  gun  carried  awkwardly  over 
his  shoulder,  his  head  bent  forward — in  an  anxious 
frowning  way  he  was  looking  into  the  darkness  ahead. 
His  companions  for  the  most  part  had  no  guns.  Now 
they  halted  in  the  rain  while  the  traffic  on  either  side 
went  hooting,  squawking,  grinding  past  them.  What  a 
muddle  London  seemed  that  night!  My  journalist  friend 
talked  cheerfully  on.  Things  at  the  front  were  in  fright 
ful  shape,  while  here  the  British  government,  like  a 

212 


BLIND  213 

decrepit  old  machine,  was  creaking,  slipping,  lurching, 
repeatedly  stalled  by  somebody's  blunder.  I  recalled 
what  Dorothy's  husband  had  said  of  England  blundering 
to  her  doom.  But  when  I  spoke  of  this  to  my  friend,  he 
smiled  and  said,  "Oh  Tommyrot!" 

We  dined  with  him  that  evening  at  the  Piccadilly 
Grill.  The  great  low  room  was  crowded  with  officers  in 
khaki,  most  of  them  splendid  looking  chaps  with  an  air 
of  easy  concern.  Their  women  were  in  evening  dress, 
some  of  them  gorgeous  creatures.  The  quick  animated 
movements,  the  laughter  and  the  hum  of  talking  in  those 
musical  English  voices,  seemed  to  come  together  here  in 
tune  and  in  time  writh  the  orchestra,  which  as  a  back 
ground  to  it  all  kept  up  a  deep  and  rhythmic  throb  of 
blithe  assurance.  A  fellow  with  a  bandaged  arm  was 
laughing  into  the  eyes  of  a  girl;  and  she  was  talking 
eagerly,  rapidly,  smiling  over  her  cigarette.  In  and  out 
of  the  throng  strolled  husky  lads  with  lazy  amused 
expressions  that  said, 

"England  going  to  her  doom?  Oh  really.  Do  you 
think  so?" 

In  the  meantime,  with  his  sharp  black  eyes  fixed  upon 
our  faces,  our  little  host  was  saying, 

"You  chaps  must  rip  your  minds  wide  open  if  you 
want  to  see  this  war.  An  American  correspondent  was 
grousing  here  the  other  day  because  he  couldn't  get  to 
the  front.  I  tried  to  tell  him  there  was  a  good  deal 
worth  his  notice  back  of  the  line.  But  he  withered  me. 
'Oh  that,'  he  said,  'has  been  done  to  death!  It's  nothing 
but  near-war  stuff !'  All  Europe  is  seething  in  a  pot,  and 
the  gods  are  cooking  a  future  that  will  astound  us  when 
it  comes — yet  my  conservative  Yankee  friend  called  it 
all  'near-war  stuff.'  His  orthodox  mind  was  back  in  the 
past,  when  wars  were  mere  affairs  of  guns — while  the 
fact  of  the  matter  is,  you  know,  that  in  politics,  in  mines 
and  mills  and  laboratories,  churches,  homes,  all  our  old 


214  BLIND 

beliefs  and  habits  like  a  lot  of  silly  old  women  are  being 
tossed  up  in  a  blanket — seventy  times  as  high  as  the 
moon! 

"But  if  your  German  brother-in-law  talks  again  of 
England's  doom,  tell  him  to  try  to  smile  a  bit.  This  isn't 
a  simple  matter  of  doom — for  any  nation — not  even 
his  own.  It's  a  damnably  glorious  muddle — a  matter  of 
revolution — change!  But  it  won't  be  as  the  Socialists 
planned.  That  looks  the  merest  twaddle  now — and  you 
must  drop  it  out  of  your  mind,  together  with  all  your 
preconceptions,  if  you  hope  to  see  what's  here.  You'll 
find  it  hard  enough  as  it  is.  The  world  is  a  bristling  jun 
gle  of  'war-lies'  in  every  land,  and  every  conceivable 
prejudice  and  distortion  of  the  facts.  All  patriotic  Brit 
ishers  will  give  you  the  most  awful  stuff  about  the 
doings  of  the  Boches;  but  that  is  nothing  when  com 
pared  to  the  whoppers  you  will  hear  in  Berlin — about 
the  cant,  hypocrisy  and  selfish  greed  of  England — 
doomed !" 

He  stopped  for  a  moment,  and  then  in  a  low  voice 
he  said, 

"Last  week  I  was  at  Oxford,  and  out  in  front  of  the 
library  on  a  misty  moonlit  night  I  saw  a  couple  of  hun 
dred  chaps  in  mufti — undergraduates — standing  at  ease 
with  their  cigarettes,  chatting  and  laughing.  Then  I 
heard  the  order  passed  back,  'No  lights — no  smoking — 
absolute  silence.'  And  a  few  moments  later  they  went 
off  into  the  mist — so  quietly.  It  was  as  though  they  were 
passing  out  of  existence." 

I  never  saw  this  man  again,  for  in  the  last  year  of 
the  war  he  was  killed  in  Flanders. 

2. 

We  came  into  Germany  on  a  clear  still  Christmas  Eve. 
We  were  unable  to  get  berths,  but  we  had  a  compart 
ment  to  ourselves.  I  put  out  the  light  and  sat  by  the  win 
dow  watching  the  fields.  They  were  white  with  frost. 


BLIND  215 

The  moon  sailing  high  in  the  heavens  shone  down  on 
woods  and  little  hills,  on  rolling  meadows,  narrow  roads, 
at  times  on  a  lonely  peasant  cart  with  a  lantern  under 
neath  the  wheels.  Snug  old  barns  and  dwellings 
appeared,  and  quaint  slumbering  villages ;  and  I  thought 
of  the  peaceable,  prosperous*  order-loving  people  of 
whom  I  had  heard  so  much  ever  since  I  was  a  boy,  when 
my  aunt  had  talked  of  her  friends  in  Wisconsin,  and 
our  old  Bavarian  nurse  had  told  us  of  Bavaria,  its  fairy 
tales,  its  music,  and  the  many  delightful  things  that  hap 
pened  to  small  boys  and  girls.  She  had  often  spoken  of 
Christmas  Eve  in  Munich,  with  the  little  trees  twinkling 
in  the  windows,  the  gifts  and  cakes,  the  games  and  the 
singing.  ...  I  fell  asleep. 

But  towards  midnight  I  was  aroused  by  a  loud  com 
motion  just  outside.  We  had  come  to  a  junction  with  a 
road  which  led  down  to  the  Belgian  frontier;  and  as  our 
train  rolled  into  the  station,  a  strange  and  grim  but  the 
atrical  scene  burst  upon  our  startled  eyes.  Under  the 
great  steel  arches  and  lofty  vaulted  roofs  of  the  station 
was  a  roaring  sea  of  men.  Gray  green  uniforms  every 
where,  spiked  helmets,  guns  and  bayonets,  loud  harsh 
voices,  bursts  of  laughter  and  the  tramp  of  heavy  boots. 
And  all  along  the  platforms  were  brilliantly  lighted 
Christmas  trees  loaded  down  with  tinsel  and  little  stars 
of  Bethlehem,  while  a  dozen  enormous  gramophones  were 
blaring  forth  the  time-honored  hymn  of  the  German 
Christmastide,  "Heilige  N'acht."  A  little  knot  of  women 
and  girls  were  working  like  tigers,  serving  coffee  and 
sandwiches.  In  a  few  moments  a  train  pulled  out.  Big 
German  boys  leaned  from  the  windows,  some  of  them 
laughing,  whistling,  others  staring  dismally.  Then,  as 
though  at  a  word  of  command,  in  a  perfect  roar  of 
voices  all  in  time  and  harmony,  they  sang  about  that 
calm  and  peaceful  "holy  night"  of  long  ago — as  their 
train  slid  out  into  the  dark  on  its  journey  into  Belgium. 

Learning  that  we  would  be  here  for  some  time,  we 


216  BLIND 

wandered  up  and  down  through  the  crowds.  The  Red 
Cross  women  in  mad  haste  were  unpacking  big  hampers 
and  huge  wicker  trunks;  and  another  train  came  thun 
dering  in,  with  a  thousand  deep  fresh  voices  singing, 
"Stille  nacht — heilige  nacht"  as  though  for  the  whole 
German  army  that  hymn  were  an  order  of  the  night. 
Out  of  the  crowded  cars  they  tumbled,  boisterous  rol 
licking  hungry  lads — and  after  their  hunger  had  been 
appeased,  to  each  was  given  a  Christmas  package  tied  up 
in  a  red  handerchief.  Twelve  thousand  of  these  pack 
ages  were  given  out  in  the  station  that  night.  Packed 
with  men  and  horses,  huge  dirty  guns  with  muddy 
wheels,  and  automobiles  and  squealing  pigs,  train  after 
train  came  rushing  through  with  deafening  din  at  the 
rate  of  fifty  miles  an  hour — freight  cars  groaning,  rat 
tling,  lurching,  screaming  at  the  headlong  pace.  I  had  a 
paralyzing  sense  of  being  but  a  tiny  atom  whirled  about 
in  an  orderly  storm. 

I  felt  a  sudden  grip  on  my  arm,  and  turning  met  the 
furious  glare  of  an  elderly  man  in  civilian  clothes,  short, 
stocky,  every  muscle  tense,  gray  hair  in  disorder  over  his 
face,  wide  jaws  clamped  together  tight,  as  in  a  snarl  he 
poured  out  a  torrent  of  German  so  fast  that  at  first  I 
could  not  get  a  word.  At  last  I  had  it.  I  was  a  spy,  an 
"Englander,"  sneaking  in  here  to  watch  an  important 
movement  of  troops.  But  he  had  me !  Ach !  He  had  me ! 
Now  he  was  violently  shaking  my  arm. 

"Es  geht  schlecht  mil  ihnen!"  he  screamed. 

And  he  laughed.  I  would  be  shot  at  dawn!  A  couple 
of  station  guards  came  up,  and  in  a  moment  I  was 
marched  off  between  their  glinting  bayonets,  with  my 
captor  close  behind. 

"Es  geht  schlecht  mit  ihnen!   So!" 

Then  Steve  appeared  with  a  surgeon  friend,  and  we 
went  to  the  Commandant,  who  was  a  quiet  smiling  man. 
He  looked  carefully  through  my  passport,  and  the  little 


BLIND  217 

farce  was  soon  at  an  end.  My  captor,  in  profound  dis 
gust,  muttering  angrily  to  himself,  went  back  to  the 
platform  to  keep  up  his  watch. 

I  could  not  get  him  out  of  my  mind.  A  nation 
strained,  its  people  charged  with  patriotic  dynamite,  and 
all  together  as  one  man — the  grip  of  Berlin  on  their 
very  souls.  But  as  my  mind  was  coming  to  this  sweep 
ing  generality,  I  found  an  exception  to  the  rule.  For 
the  incidents  of  this  crowded  night  were  not  yet  over. 

Into  our  compartment,  as  our  train  was  starting  on, 
came  a  fellow  whom  I  took  to  be  a  young  German  offi 
cer.  He  seemed  to  have  a  mean  cold  in  his  head,  for  over 
his  gray  field  suit  he  wore  a  green  muffler  that  swathed 
his  neck  and  almost  covered  his  shoulders.  He  lit  a 
cigarette  and  leaned  back,  but  I  could  feel  his  keen  gray 
eyes  now  on  me  and  now  on  Steve,  who  had  fallen  asleep 
in  one  corner.  For  a  few  minutes  the  train  rushed  on. 
Then  abruptly  he  turned  to  me  and  said  in  perfect 
English, 

"Your  friend  is  American  Red  Cross?" 

"Yes." 

"And  you?" 

"A  correspondent." 

"Ah !  You  are  going  to  write  of  all  this !" 

"Perhaps.  It  looks  rather  hopeless  so  far."  He  shot 
a  quick  glance  at  me : 

"How  do  you  mean?" 

"There's  so  much  of  it,"  I  answered. 

"So."  He  studied  me  for  a  while.  "But  what  is  your 
point  of  view?"  he  asked. 

"You  mean  as  to  who  started  the  war?"  I  questioned 
a  bit  wearily. 

"No!"  he  snapped.  "I  do  not  mean  that!  I  am  sick 
of  these  national  pros  and  cons.  What  is  your  point  of 
view,  I  ask,  on  life  in  general?  You  are  a  writer.  What 
did  you  write  before  the  war?" 


218  BLIND 

"Plays,"  I  said.  And  at  this  word  the  whole  face  of 
the  man  lit  up  in  a  flash. 

"So,"  he  replied.  "As  for  me,"  he  added,  "I  was  a 
dramatic  critic." 

"The  devil  you  were !" 

"Yes — long  ago."  His  voice  had  a  wistful  hungry 
tone.  "Before  the  world  got  into  this  mess."  For  a 
moment  we  looked  at  each  other  in  silence.  " 

"From  what  I  have  known  of  critics,"  I  said,  "you 
ought  to  make  an  exceedingly  successful  German  officer 
— of  the  kind  described  in  the  English  press."  He  smiled 
back  at  me  : 

"Brutal." 

"That's  about  it."  he  chuckled. 

"The  critics  slaughtered  you,  eh?" 

"Quite  often.  And  how  they  enjoyed  it!"  He  chuckled 
again,  in  a  tense  eager  way,  and  offered  me  a  cigarette. 

"You  called  me  an  officer,"  he  said.  "But  I  am  not." 
He  threw  off  the  scarf  he  was  wearing.  "You  see?  I 
am  only  a  man  in  the  ranks.  But  by  this  little  trick  I 
pass  to  be  an  officer  and  so  I  get  a  seat  in  here.  How  do 
you  say  in  America?"  He  frowned  in  the  effort  to  rec 
ollect.  "You  have  such  an  excellent  word  for  it.  Grayft 
— grooft?" 

"Graft,"  I  replied.  "You  are  a  grafter.  You  graft  a 
first-class  compartment." 

"So!"  With  great  satisfaction  at  this  chance  to  per 
fect  his  English,  he  repeated  after  me,  "Graft.  I  am  a 
grafter,"  Then  abruptly  he  changed  the  topic.  "Now  let 
us  speak  about  plays,"  he  said ;  and  he  talked  rapidly  for 
some  time.  His  favorites  were  Strindberg,  Ibsen,  Tchek- 
kof,  Synge,  Shaw,  Schnitzler — others  that  I  forget. 
Some  I  had  never  heard  of  before.  He  spoke  of  a  new 
school  in  France.  In  brief,  he  was  a  modern  of  mod 
erns,  an  international  highbrow.  Even  Suderman,  I 
learned,  was  hopelessly  bourgeois  to  his  taste. 


BLIND  219 

"Do  you  know  ?"  he  said.  "In  five  long  months  I  have 
not  been  alive — I  have  not  thought — my  mind  is  dead — 
it  has  been  drowned.  I  shall  remember  this  hour  with 
you  as  a  light — a  spot-light  in  the  dark." 

Now  we  began  to  speak  of  the  war. 

"Tell  me  really  what  you  think,"  he  said,  with  his 
ironic  smile.  "Be  frank.  I  am  no  chauvinist." 

"I  have  seen  so  little,"  I  began. 

"You  are  lucky,"  he  interrupted.  "With  me  it  is  dif 
ferent — I  have  seen !  For  months  I  have  been  like  a 
man  submerged  in  a  flood  of  blood  and  hatred.  It  is  what 
no  man  but  a  paranoiac  could  have  pictured  coming  over 
the  world.  But  it  has  come!  The  hatred  rising  in  all 
men  has  already  butchered  millions  and  will  butcher 
millions  more!  And  not  only  that!"  he  cried.  "It  is  not 
even  hatred  well  expressed !  I  read  not  only  German,  but 
Russian,  English,  French,  Italian — and  whenever  I  had 
a  chance  I  have  searched  for  one  book,  one  play,  one 
song!  I  find  nothing  but  cheap  drivel — the  most  fright 
ful  patriotic  bosh !" 

"You  don't  call  yourself  a  patriot,  then " 

"I  am  a  patriot!"  he  declared.  "I  can  imagine  noth 
ing  more  dismal  than  a  world  with  nationalities  merged 
in  one — all  of  us  talking  Esperanta.  What  a  flat  dreary 
future  for  art!  No,  I  wish  to  stay  German.  And  as  a 
German  I  wish  to  compete  with  Frenchmen,  Russians, 
English — Swedes,  Norwegians,  Chinamen — in  my  own 
world,  the  theatre!  Yes,  I  am  a  patriot!  But  all  this 
silly  nonsense  about  white  papers  and  red  blood — what 
is  it?  What  does  it  decide?  Shall  I  tell  you?  It  decides 
for  us  all  that  every  little  lieutenant  is  God — not  only 
here  but  in  England  and  France!  And  so  long  as  we 
live,  this  ignorant  fellow  will  be  the  god  to  whom  we  bow 
down — excuse  me,  I  should  say,  salute!  Around  him 
will  be  written  plays  that  make  a  man  sick  to  think 
about!  Through  him  and  his  standards  the  crowd  will 


220  BLIND 

be  a  hundred-fold  more  ignorant  and  brutalized  even 
than  before  the  war — they  will  cultivate  prize  fighters' 
souls!  And  I  who  am  a  patriot — I  am  against  this 
bloody  farce!  And,"  he  ended  grimly,  "my  bitterness 
does  me  no  good — for  I  must  keep  it  all  inside.  I  cannot 
speak.  It  is  an  ocean.  I  am  drowned." 

When  we  came  to  his  station,  he  got  up  and  held  out 
his  hand. 

"Thank  you,"  he  said,  "for  letting  me  talk." 

"Tell  me,"  I  asked,  curiously,  "are  there  many  in  Ger 
many  like  you?" 

"Did  I  not  tell  you/'  he  rejoined,  "that  this  hour  is 
the  only  time  in  five  months  that  I  have  been  alive  ?" 


3. 

Abruptly  he  left  us.  The  train  was  packed  to  burst 
ing  now;  and  a  moment  later,  with  a  rush,  some  six  or 
eight  soldiers,  dirty  and  worn,  came  into  our  compart 
ment.  They  looked  like  peasants  or  laborers.  A  strong 
animal  odor  filled  the  place.  In  a  few  minutes,  on  the 
seat  where  the  highbrow  critic  had  talked  about  Art, 
a  row  of  bedraggled  weary  men  sat  with  mouths  open, 
fast  asleep.  And  I  felt  as  though  that  "ocean"  had  swept 
over  me  again.  I  wondered  how  many  critics  of  the 
Great  War  I  should  find.  I  remembered  the  little  Welsh- 
Britisher  and  tried  to  compare  what  he  had  said  with 
the  talk  of  this  German.  But  I  was  dull  and  drowsy  now. 
Crowded  into  my  corner,  I  must  have  slept  for  an  hour 
or  more.  When  I  awoke,  the  dawn  had  come.  The  sol 
diers  were  all  asleep — but  one.  He  had  taken  a  news 
paper  out  of  his  pocket  and  was  reading  with  a  frown. 
He  did  not  look  like  a  peasant,  but  more  like  a  factory 
hand.  At  once  I  watched  him  closer,  for  I  thought  I 
had  seen  his  type  before.  His  face  was  lean  and  over 
wrought,  and  I  caught  a  bitter  expression  there.  He  did 
not  notice  me  watching  him;  for  now  he  himself  had 


BLIND  22t 

put  down  his  paper  and  was  intently  studying  the  faces 
of  his  companions. 

Presently  we  stopped  at  a  station,  and  in  the  bustle 
some  awoke  and  went  out  for  coffee  and  sandwiches. 
They  scrambled  back  when  the  train  moved  on,  and  now 
the  group  began  to  talk.  They  took  no  notice  of  Steve 
or  me,  for  in  our  corners,  motionless,  we  pretended  to  be 
asleep.  They  spoke  of  their  homes  and  villages.  What 
would  Christmas  be  like  this  year?  But  the  trench  life 
was  still  in  their  minds,  and  their  talk  soon  came  ta 
that.  It  was  of  mud  and  icy  water,  long  cold  nights. 
Many  grumbles  were  heard.  Then  somebody  wondered 
how  long  the  war  was  going  to  last.  And  at  that,  the 
lean-faced  man  began  to  talk  to  these  comrades  whose 
faces  he  had  studied  so  very  carefully  one  by  one.  His 
talk  at  first  was  careful,  too. 

"We're  a  hard  crowd  to  beat,"  he  declared,  and  to 
this  the  others  promptly  agreed.  "But  so  are  the  French 
and  English,"  he  added. 

"No,"  said  a  peasant,  "not  the  English.  They  are  pigs 
and  bastards!" 

"But  they  can  fight,"  the  man  went  on,  "and  I  think 
the  war  will  last  for  years." 

"Well,  they  are  to  blame  for  it,"  said  a  stout  good- 
natured  peasant.  "They  started  it,  the  devils!" 

"Their  government  did,"  the  other  rejoined.  "But  I 
have  talked  with  some  of  those  men  when  we.  took  them 
prisoners.  The  French  are  good  fellows  like  ourselves." 

"Yes,  they  are  good  fellows,"  the  stout  peasant 
promptly  agreed. 

"And  they  did  not  start  the  war.  In  Russia  the  Czar 
he  started  it  off — because  up  there  in  Petersburg  the 
workingmen  were  making  him  trouble — the}  even  had 
barricades  in  the  streets.  So  he  started  the  war  to  stop 
their  strikes.  And  in  France  it  was  the  fat  Catholic 
priests  and  the  rich  people  who  want  a  king.  In 


222  BLIND 

England  I  read  in  the  papers  that  they  have  had  a  hard 
time  to  get  their  workingmen  to  enlist." 

"They  are  cowards,"  said  a  peasant. 

"Yes,  but  they  did  not  start  the  war.  I  tell  you  it  was 
started  by  a  lot  of  fat  rich  people.  And  we  are  the  fel 
lows  who  have  to  get  killed.  And  if  we  don't  get  killed, 
by  God,  we  will  have  to  pay  war  taxes!  And  think 
of  the  widows  we'll  have  to  help!  All  the  fellows  who 
are  killed  are  leaving  in  every  village  widows  and  old 
mothers  and  little  brats  who  will  have  to  be  fed!  And 
the  village  will  have  to  feed  them!" 

"Well,  we're  in  for  it,"  somebody  sighed. 

"All  the  same,"  said  the  lean-faced  man,  "I'll  be  glad 
when  there's  peace.  I'll  be  glad  when  we  jump  out  of 
the  trenches  and  the  Frenchmen  do  the  same,  and  we 
run  across  and  shake  hands  with  each  other." 

"That  will  be  fine,"  said  the  good-natured  peasant. 
"We'll  do  it  as  soon  as  the  war  is  over." 

"Some  fellows  have  done  it,"  the  speaker  replied. 

"What?"    Instantly  all  were  wide  awake. 

"Some  fellow  told  me  that  where  he  was,  our  men  held 
up  spades  and  the  French  did  the  same — and  then  they 
ran  out  and  all  shook  hands.  And  they  did  like  this  at 
the  trenches."  He  thumbed  his  nose,  and  at  this  they 
laughed.  But  the  laugh  soon  stopped  and  there  was  a 
silence. 

"You  can't  do  that  to  your  officers,"  said  one  man 
uneasily. 

"It  is  a  lie  and  it  never  happened,"  said  another  peasant. 
"You  are  making  it  up." 

"Perhaps  it  is  a  lie,"  said  the  speaker.  "But  that  is 
what  the  fellow  said."  He  threw  a  vigilant  glance  along 
the  row  of  faces.  "And  when  you  come  to  think  of  it," 
he  continued  quietly,  "it  is  not  so  bad,  what  those  fel 
lows  did.  You  must  obey  your  officers — because  this  is 


BLIND  223 

war.  If  we  didn't  obey,  everything  would  be  all  mixed 
up,  and  the  French  would  charge  and  kill  us  all.  But  if 
whole  regiments  everywhere  jumped  out  of  the  trenches, 
as  he  said,  and  the  French  and  English  did  the  same, 
and  we  met  in  the  middle  of  the  field — then  there  would 
be  war  no  more — and  no  need  of  officers." 

There  was  a  long  silence. 

"I  don't  like  this  talk  at  all,"  muttered  the  good- 
natured  peasant.  "It  is  not  good  to  talk  of  this." 

"You  are  right,  brother,"  another  growled.  "You  will 
get  us  into  trouble!"  he  said,  turning  angrily  to  the 
speaker.  "Look  out!" 

"Oh,  there's  no  trouble,"  the  speaker  replied.  "I  just 
told  you  what  that  fellow  said.  Perhaps  he  was  wrong 
and  perhaps  he  was  right.  Let's  talk  about  something 
else  instead." 

The  talk  ran  on  to  other  things.  But  from  time  to 
time  I  noticed  two  or  three  of  the  group  would  grow 
silent  and  frown  and  stare  out  of  the  window.  The  lean- 
faced  man  had  resumed  his  paper  with  a  relieved  expres 
sion,  as  though  he  had  put  through  his  job  for  the  day. 

I  exchanged  a  little  look  with  Steve  and  saw  he  had 
been  listening,  too.  Again  I  thought  of  our  little  Welsh 
friend,  the  journalist  in  London.  Yes,  there  was  cer 
tainly  more  in  this  than  battles,  I  thought.  I  compared 
his  eager  optimism  to  the  fatalistic  gloom  of  the  Frank 
fort  critic.  Which  was  right?  .  .  .  Revolution?  ..  .  . 
Far  away.  .  .  .  Yet  here  in  Germany,  in  one  night,  I 
had  found  two  revolutionists!  A  most  amazing  state  of 
things.  How  many  more  was  I  to  find  in  this  land  of 
blood  and  iron? 

But  it  was  just  one  of  the  queer  surprises,  the  uncanny 
twists  and  turns  by  which  the  Great  War  played  with 
me,  that  this  talk  of  rebellion,  given  me  in  one  dose  at 
the  start,  was  the  only  talk  of  its  kind  that  I  heard.  Many 


124  BLIND 

hard  bleak  months  went  by  before  I  saw  in  Germany 
the  least  glimmer  of  revolt. 

4.. 

As'  I  look  back  upon  Berlin,  a  vivid  memory  comes  to 
me  of  a  certain  rainy  night.  We  were  sitting  at  a  cafe 
window  on  the  Friedrichstrasse.  In  that  narrow  crowded 
thoroughfare  with  its  sparkling  shop  windows,  a  winter's 
dusk  had  fallen,  though  it  was  not  yet  five  o'clock. 
It  was  the  coffee  hour,  and  the  huge  hall  behind  us  was 
packed  full  of  people,  but  our  eyes  were  on  the  street. 
Outside  the  window,  on  the  curb,  her  gray  woolen  dress 
and  shawl  sodden  and  dripping  wet  with  rain,  stood  a 
stout  old  woman  with  a  bundle  of  newspapers  under  one 
arm.  The  glare  from  a  sputtering  arc-light  just  above 
her  fell  on  the  title,  "Die  Zukunft"  And  as  though  it 
were  a  message  of  ill-omen  that  she  carried,  the  old 
crone  kept  peering  sharply  at  the  passing  crowds,  and 
every  few  moments  darting  out  she  would  display  this 
title  and  scream  it  in  their  faces : 

'The  Future !  The  Future !" 

The  life  of  Berlin  swept  endlessly  by.  Along  the  nar 
row  street  behind  came  wagons,  drays  and  taxis,  in  one 
of  which  as  it  stopped  in  a  jam  I  caught  a  glimpse  of  a 
couple  inside,  a  most  absorbed  young  officer  with  a  slen 
der  young  person  in  brown  in  his  arms.  The  old  woman 
saw  them  too,  and  thrust  her  newspaper  into  their  win 
dow.  "Die  Zukunft!  Die  Zukunft!"  A  score  of 
wounded  soldiers  passed,  arms  in  slings,  heads  bandaged, 
with  a  Red  Cross  nurse  as  guide.  Laughing,  pushing, 
jostling,  they  entered  a  "movy"  across  the  way.  A  girl 
of  the  street  came  gaily  dressed,  from  under  her  small 
blue  silk  umbrella  anxiously  watching  the  faces  of  the 
men.  She  and  her  like  had  been  through  hard  times. 
Ordered  off  the  streets  at  the  start  of  the  war,  since  then 
the  police  repression  had  been  modified  only  to  a  degree, 


BLIND  225 

and  in  all  the  relief  work  there  was  no  helping  hand  for 
her.  So  she  kept  smiling  eagerly,  as  though  afraid  to 
stop  for  a  moment.  "Die  Zukunft!"  Then  she  was  gone. 
A  woman  with  three  children  came  up  the  street  on  the 
other  side.  She  looked  worried,  thin  and  worn  to  the 
bone.  She  stopped  before  a  window  marked,  "Christ 
mas  gifts  for  men  in  the  field."  As  she  quickly  scanned 
these  gifts,  one  of  the  children,  a  little  boy,  kept  tugging 
her  arm  and  pointing  to  a  window  rilled  with  toys.  She 
shook  her  head  and  he  started  to  cry.  Anxiously  watch 
ing  the  crowded .  street,  she  hurried  her  small  brood 
across.  As  they  came  close  to  our  window,  we  noticed 
how  seedy  and  patched  were  their  clothes.  The  old 
woman,  as  though  she  had  noticed  too,  screamed  in  their 
faces,  "Die  Zukunft!" 

All  Germany  seemed  to  be  passing.  Stolid  family 
parties,  men,  women  and  small  children,  soldiers, 
sailors,  business  men,  Lutheran  preachers,  scientists, 
writers  and  musicians,  one  with  his  fiddle  under  his  arm, 
all  poured  by  our  window  talking  as  they  went  along. 
And  as  they  talked  of  their  affairs — the  army  and  the 
navy,  the  business,  homes  and  churches,  the  science,  lit 
erature  and  music  of  this  German  people — we  could  hear 
nothing  of  it  all  but  a  deep  vibrant  humming,  out  of 
which  like  a  challenge  the  old  woman's  voice  rose  harsh 
and  clear: 

"The  Future!" 

What  would  it  be? 

Dorothy  sat  by  my  side,  and  for  me  the  whole  grim 
city  had  centered  around  this  one  girl's  life. 

"What  does  she  think  of  all  this?"  I  asked.  "And  how 
does  she  feel  toward  her  husband  now?" 

The  antagonism  I  had  felt  against  him  back  at  Seven 
Pines  was  sharper  even  than  before,  for  I  could  see  she 
was  far  from  happy.  As  she  talked  on  rapidly  with  a 
strained  unnatural  friendliness,  I  kept  watching  her  face. 


226  BLIND 

From  the  days  when  we  were  small,  we  had  been  so 
close  that  now  beneath  the  surface  I  could  feel  her  deep 
uncertainty.  Her  husband  was  away  at  the  front. 
Would  he  come  back?  If  he  came,  would  she  want  him? 
Did  she  love  him  ?  I  could  not  be  sure.  For  all  her  eager 
welcome,  I  had  come  up  against  a  wall  of  reserve  sud 
denly  risen  between  us  two.  We  had  been  together  for 
hours,  and  still  I  could  not  get  to  her  real  thoughts  and 
feelings.  What  was  wrong? 

So  it  had  been  ever  since  with  Steve  I  had  met  her 
on  the  day  before.  When  we  found  her  in  the  apart 
ment  of  a  German  neurologist  and  his  wife,  friends  of 
her  husband's  with  whom  he  had  left  her,  Dorothy's 
relief  and  joy  had  at  first  swept  everything  else  aside. 
In  a  tense  starved  fashion  she  had  asked  for  news  from 
home  and  had  kept  the  talk  on  Seven  Pines.  It  was 
Christmas !  She  began  to  speak  of  other  Christmases  long 
gone  by — but  in  spite  of  herself,  as  though  by  chains, 
her  mind  was  drawn  to  the  Christmas  here.  A  forlorn 
little  tree  stood  by  the  window,  and  she  tried  to  make 
us  believe  "what  fun"  they  had  had  the  night  before. 
But  the  atmosphere  of  the  empty  rooms  was  grim  and 
cheerless  to  a  degree.  The  German  couple  were  not  at 
home;  they  were  both  out  working  for  the  war,  even 
on  this  holiday. 

"All  Germany  is  like  that!"  she  said. 

Bit  by  bit  we  drew  out  of  her  the  story  of  the  last  few 
months — and,  make  light  of  it  as  she  would,  it  was  a 
stark  little  narrative.  She  told  of  the  anxiety  of  that 
long  ocean  voyage.  Their  Dutch  ship  had  been  stopped 
and  searched,  and  only  his  Dutch  passport  had  saved  her 
husband  from  arrest.  Max  had  taken  her  at  first  to  the 
Prussian  village  where  he  was  born,  where  his  father 
owned  the  bank  and  the  store.  She  had  found  it  "ter 
ribly  dreary"  there  and  had  begged  to  be  taken  to  Ber 
lin.  This  had  met  with  harsh  disapproval  in  the  family 


BLIND  227 

circle — a  needless  expense  in  war-time.  But  Max  had 
stood  by  her  and  brought  her  here.  She  eagerly 
impressed  upon  us  how  "kind  and  dear"  to  her  he  had 
been.  His  work  kept  him  most  of  the  time  at  the  front, 
and  of  course  that  had  been  hard  for  her;  but  meanwhile 
she  had  made  some  friends,  Germans  and  Americans, 
and  now  she  was  getting  on  "finely."  But  all  the  time 
she  was  speaking,  I  could  feel  what  a  strange  lonely  time 
poor  Dorothy  had  been  going  through.  Did  she  love  him, 
or  was  she  simply  trying  to  show  a  plucky  front?  She 
asked  us  how  the  people  at  home  were  feeling  now  about 
the  war,  and  disturbed  by  our  replies  phe  was  soon  anx 
iously  doing  her  best  to  gr^e  us  the  German  side  of  it. 
She  was  bitter  against  "English  lies."  When  I  told  her 
that  in  London  we  had  heard  the  shops  in  Berlin 
described  as  being  empty  of  goods,  Dorothy  was  indig 
nant. 

"I  will  show  you!"  she  declared,  and  once  more  in 
that  tense  eager  way  she  talked  of  Germany  in  the 
war — loyal  to  her  husband,  loyal  to  his  country.  Again 
she  impressed  upon  us  how  finely  she  was  getting  on. 

But  when  at  leaving  I  gave  her  a  small  package  of 
gifts  and  letters,  I  caught  the  homesick  flash  in  her  eyes. 

"She'd  give  her  life  to  be  back,"  I  thought. 

The  next  day  she  took  me  to  the  shops;  and  surely 
things  looked  prosperous  there — but  in  the  handsome 
windows  all  along  Untcr  den  Linden  the  articles  we  saw 
displayed  were  almost  entirely  for  men — warm  fur  vests 
and  sweaters,  boots  of  oiled  leather,  cigars,  cigarettes, 
liquor  flasks  and  pocket  lights,  wrist  watches  and  revolv 
ers.  In  nearly  every  window  the  women  had  been  quite 
shut  out. 

"But  it's  good  for  the  women,"  Dorothy  said.  We 
were  sitting  now  in  the  big  cafe  on  the  Friedrichstrasse, 
with  the  old  woman  just  outside  harshly  screaming  "Die 
Zukunft."  "Before  the  war,  Berlin  had  gone  half  mad 


223  BLIND 

with  too  much  money,"  she  said.  The  neurologist  with 
whom  she  lived  had  had  among  his  patients  scores  of 
wealthy  young  married  women  who  kept  apartments  of 
their  own  for  their  various  love  affairs.  "And  one  young 
girl  of  seventeen  came  to  him  with  her  nerves  in  shreds 
—she  had  just  been  through  her  third  affair!  He  had 
all  sorts  of  neurotics  to  treat,  and  every  kind  of  hysteria. 
The  little  stories  he  told  me  were  enough  to  turn  one's 
hair!"  She  broke  off  with  a  jerk.  "Of  course,"  she 
added  earnestly,  "most  German  women  aren't  like  that. 
I  was  speaking  c.f  the  Smart  Set,  which  is  very  much 
the  same  I  gue:s  in  London  or  in  Paris,  and  certainly  in 
Petrogrpr*.  Berlin  has  been  no  worse  than  the  re?t."  She 
returned  to  her  neurologist  friend :  "But  now  he  smiles 
rind  says  he  is  ruined,  his  practice  almost  entirely  gone. 
His  patients  are  so  hard  at  work  they've  forgotten  they 
ever  had  any  nerves." 

For  a  time  we  watched  the  people  outside.  And  as  my 
voting  cousin  commented  on  the  passers-by,  I  could  tell 
by  the  figures  that  she  chose  how  intensely  she  was  try 
ing  to  make  these  people  appear  likable  and  sympathetic. 
But  as  the  old  woman's  cry  broke  harshly  in  upon  us, 
into  Dorothy's  vivid  blue  eyes  again  came  that  uncer 
tainty. 

"I  wonder,"  she  asked  sharply,  "what's  to  become  of 
the  youn<^  girls  in  Europe  if  the  war  goes  on?  Who 
will  be  left  to  marry  them?  Will  they  be  wiring  to  live 
like  nuns,  or  will  they  want  to  have  normal  lives?"  She 
frowned.  "We've  been  pretty  old-fashioned  about  such 
things  rt  home,  I  think."  She  gave  me  a  queer  little 
r.mile.  "Do  you  remember  in  those  sprees  of  ours  how 
we  would  sit  in  a  cafe  just  as  we  are  doing  now — and 
nir  our  views,  and  feel  how  liberal  we  were,  and  how 
emancipated  about  such  things?  But  we  weren't  really." 
She  stopped  short  and  caught  her  breath.  She  had 
remembered  rr>  ?^air.  In  an  instant  she  recovered  her- 


BLIND  229 

self.  "And  most  Americans  are  like  that.  But  over  here 
it's  different — their  views  are  broad,  to  say  the  least.  I 
wonder  what  these  girls  will  do?" 

"I  wonder  what  you  will  do?"  I  thought.  "Do  you 
love  him?  What  is  wrong?  Just  before  I  left  Seven 
Pines,  Dorothy's  mother,  in  counseling  me  as  to  how  I 
could  help  the  girl,  had  hinted  that  in  a  letter  home  Dor 
othy  had  told  her  that  she  would  not  have  a  child — not 
while  life  was  "still  so  strange."  But  was  that  the  only 
reason?  Now  I  told  her  cf  our  plan  to  take  her  with  us 
t:>  the  place  where  Steve's  hospital  work  would  be.  And 
the  flash  of  joy  that  came  on  her  face  gave  me  a  swift 
tingling  shock  Then  it  vanished 

"I  don't  know,"  she  said,  in  a  low  voice.  "I'd  love  to 
be  v/ith  you  and  Steve — but  I  have  work  here." 

"You  would  have  it  there.  Steve  would  see  to  that," 
I  urged.  She  r tared  out  of  the  window. 

"I  wonder  if  Max  would  like  me  to?  You  see,  I'm 
here  among  his  friends — and  I'm  really  getting  on  so 
well.  I  wonder  if  it  wouldn't — hurt  him  just  a  1'ttte — 
if  I  went  with  you  and  Steve?  I  don't  want  to  hurt 
him,  Larry.  He — means  so  very  much  to  me,"  she  ended 
with  her  lips  compressed. 

We  were  interrupted  then,  for  talking*  we  had  grown 
so  absorbed  that  we  had  forgotten  the  time.  It  was  the 
supper  hour  now  and  the  place  was  packed  to  bursting. 
A  big  lad  dressed  in  a  black  leather  suit  made  a  stiff  bow 
and  sat  down  r.t  our  table.  He  had  a  handsome  florid 
face  with  an  impassive  dull  expression.  He  was  a 
motorcycle  Fcort  and  had  been  in  Belgium,  he  explained. 
We  ordered  some  supper  and  talked  with  him.  He  was  a 
bit  reserved  nt  first ;  but  when  he  learned  that  Dorothy 
had  married  one  of  his  countrymen,  he  grew  more  com 
municative.  HQ  had  been  not  only  in  Belgium  and 
France  but  in  East  Prussia  too,  he  said.  He  showed  me 
his  small  "Browning,"  and  I  asked  how  many  he  thought 


230  BLIND 

he  had  killed.    With  a  reminiscent  smile  on  his  face  he 
began  to  count  on  his  fingers. 

"Eight/'  he  replied.  "And  one  was  a  girl."  Dorothy 
made  a  quick  little  movement. 

"Why  a  girl  ?"  I  asked  him.  He  looked  at  me  calmly : 
"What  else  could  I  do?  I  was  with  my  comrade  in 
front  of  a  farm.  It  was  hot — we  had  stopped  for  a 
drink  of  water.  There  was  a  shot  from  behind  the  hedge 
not  ten  meters  off,  and  he  fell  dead.  I  turned  and  saw  a 
Belgian  girl  taking  aim  at  me  with  her  rifle.  Both  of 
us  fired — and  she  missed.  It  was  very  lucky  for  me," 
he  said.  "I  had  some  very  important  dispatches. 

"On  another  day,"  he  continued,  "we  found  a 
wounded  German  inside  a  big  brick  oven  that  stood  beside 
a  farm-house.  We  pulled  him  out  but  he  was  dead.  His 
face  was  brown.  He  was  baked  to  death.  We  found 
three  peasants  in  the  barn,  and  first  we  made  them  dig 
their  grave.  Then  we  threw  them  into  the  hole  and 
finished  them  with  our  bayonets." 

I  caught  the  look  on  my  cousin's  face  and  tried  to  stop 
this  German  youth,  but  at  first  he  paid  no  heed.  On  he 
went  in  his  stolid  voice : 

"In  East  Prussia  we  entered  a  village  from  which  a 
troop  of  Cossacks  had  just  been  driven  by  our  men. 
They  had  left  four  German  women  and  three  little  girls 
— stripped  naked — all  nailed  by  their  hands  and  feet  to  a 
barn.  They  were  dead,  but  their  bodies  were  still  warm." 

Dorothy  gave  a  little  cry.  That  stopped  him.  There 
was  an  awkward  pause.  He  quickly  finished  his  supper 
and  then  with  another  punctilious  bow  he  rose  and  left 
us.  I  turned  to  her. 

"Have  you  heard  much  of  this?"  I  asked.  She  shook 
her  head.  "I  wonder  how  much  of  it  is  true?" 

"It  sounded  true,"  was  her  tense  reply. 

"So  did  the  tales  I  heard  in  London  and  at  home,"  I 


BLIND  231 

said.  "But  for  every  atrocity  there  are  probably  fifty 
such  stories  that  start." 

"But  even  if  most  of  them  are  lies,"  my  cousin 
answered  passionately,  "don't  you  see  the  hideous  harm 
they  do?  This  boy,  for  example,  he  tells  them — tells 
them  everywhere  he  goes!  And  thousands  of  others  do 
the  same — in  Germany,  France  and  England,  too!  In 
every  village,  every  hut,  such  hideous  things  are  being 
told — and  being  told  to  children — making  their  small 
hands  grow  cold  and  icy  as  they  feel  that  the  world  is 
full  of  monsters — fiends — called  Cossacks,  Frenchmen, 
Germans,  Boches — enemies — to  be  stamped  under  foot! 
That's  the  hideous  part  of  this  war!"  she  breathed. 

I  noticed  how  tired  and  strained  she  was.  I  proposed 
that  we  go  to  a  concert  that  night,  and  she  shot  a  grate 
ful  look  of  relief. 

"Oh,  Larry  dear,  let's  go!"  she  exclaimed.  We  got  a 
paper  and  looked  up  the  evening's  list  of  entertainments. 
"Here  it  is — a  symphony  concert  in  Beethoven  Hall."  We 
took  a  taxi  and  set  out.  It  was  still  raining.  As  we  passed 
along  Unter  den  Linden,  we  heard  the  cry,  "Ein  Luff- 
schiff!"  And  looking  up  we  saw  a  dark  phantom  with 
spectral  eyes  of  red  and  green  drift  by  under  the  stars 
above.  On  a  dark  side  street  we  stopped  to  make  way 
for  two  or  three  hundred  recruits,  in  citizens'  clothes 
with  satchels  and  boxes,  heavy  boots  strung  over  their 
shoulders.  They  made  me  think  of  the  little  crowd  of 
volunteers  in  London.  But  Dorothy  was  not  thinking 
of  that.  The  street  was  empty  except  for  a  girl.  Hold 
ing  an  umbrella  over  the  baby  in  her  arms,  she  hurried 
along  beside  one  of  the  men.  I  caught  a  glimpse  of  her 
face  as  she  passed,  and  she  looked  terribly  alone.  Then 
I  felt  Dorothy's  clutch  on  my  arm,  and  it  was  as  though 
she  were  saying  sharply : 

"That  is  why  I  won't  have  a  child!" 


232  BLIND 

But  the  next  moment  she  was  smiling,  and  telling  what 
wonderful  music  she  had  been  hearing  in  Berlin.  When 
we  came  to  Beethoven  Hall  the  concert  had  already 
begun.  They  were  playing  a  Haydn  symphony,  and  in 
seats  or  at  tables  behind  sat  a  thousand  men  and  women 
— a  few  with  steins  before  them,  some  of  the  women 
knitting,  some  of  the  men  with  heads  in  their  hands. 
The  old  symphony  was  so  peaceful,  so  sweet  and 
gracious  and  tender  and  gay,  rising  up  out  of  the  Ger 
many  of  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago.  I  could  feel 
Dorothy  relax.  Those  hideous  stories  were  left  outside. 
I  forgot  the  thundering  trains  filled  with  troops  and  can 
non,  the  ugly  modern  industrial  towns,  the  foundries 
working  day  and  night,  for  modern  Prussia's  place  in 
the  sun.  Watching  the  men  and  women  there,  all  under 
the  spell  of  Haydn,  Mozart  and  Beethoven,  they 
appeared  as  though  transformed — a  peaceful,  music-lov 
ing  race.  They  were  playing  "The  Eroica"  now,  and 
Beethoven  loomed  before  my  mind  as  the  epitome  of  "die 
ordnung" — for  all  the  tremendous  passions  in  that  grand 
old  symphony  were  held  down  by  an  iron  restraint.  And 
so  it  was  with  the  people  around  me.  From  time  to  time 
my  cousin's  eyes  turned  in  a  happy  way  to  mine,  as 
though  she  were  begging  me  to  believe  that  this  was  the 
real  Germany. 

"Oh  how  I  hate  this  war!"  she  whispered.  Later  as 
I  took  her  home,  she  spoke  again  of  her  husband — of 
how  kind  he  was  to  her  and  of  the  risks  he  ran  at  the 
front. 

"And  it's  more  than  that,"  she  said.  "You  know  how 
he  is — he's  the  sensitive  kind,  with  a  deep  imagination. 
He  sees  so  much  the  others  miss — and  it  hurts  him  so. 
He's — oh  so  changed!  You'll  find  his  views — so  differ 
ent!  I  want  you  to  be  friends,  you  know — it  will  mean 
so  much  to  me!  Goodnight,  Larry  dear — what  a  won 
derful  day!" 


BLIND  233 

"You'll  think  over  that  plan  of  coming  with  us  ?"  Her 
face  contracted. 

"Yes,"  she  said. 

Did  she  really  care  for  him?  I  came  back  to  my  first 
question.  "Is  she  happy  when  he's  here?  Or  does  she 
simply  pity  him — and  half  feeling  her  mistake  but  fight 
ing  off  admitting  it — not  happy  with  him,  not  willing 
to  bear  him  the  child  that  he  wants — for  that  very  reason 
is  she  not  all  the  more  determined  to  be  loyal  to  him,'* 
I  asked,  "in  this  crisis  of  his  life?" 

Die  Zukunft — what  would  it  be?  I  saw  much  of  her 
in  the  next  few  days,  and  most  of  the  time  we  were 
alone,  for  Steve  was  busy  seeing  officials  to  arrange  for 
the  work  ahead. 

Our  next  evening  was  one  I  shall  never  forget.  I 
learned  of  a  meeting 'in  Beethoven  Hall  and  persuaded 
her  to  go  with  me  there.  Had  I  known  what  was  on 
the  program  I  would  not  have  taken  her.  The  whole 
stimmung  of  the  place  had  changed.  The  hall  was 
crowded  to  the  doors,  and  in  place  of  the  orchestra  on 
the  stage  stood  one  of  Prussia's  foremost  actors.  A 
stout  man  with  pallid  face,  his  appearance  was  greeted 
with  applause.  He  recited  poems  and  songs  of  war,  and 
he  seemed  to  hold  the  crowd  in  his  hand.  Rising  at  last 
to  his  climax,  he  began  the  chant  that  was  known  all 
over  Germany: 

French  and  Russian,  they,  matter  not; 
A  blow  for  a  blow  and  a  shot  for  a  shot; 
We  love  them  not,  we  hate  them  not; 
We  hold  the  Weichsel  and  Vosges-gate. 
We   have  but  one  and  only  hate, 
We  love  as  one,  we  hate  as  one, 

We  have  one  foe  and  one  alone 

ENGLAND! 

He  is  known  to  you  all,  he  is  known  to  you  all. 

He  crouches  behind  the  dark  gray  flood, 

Full  of  envy,  of  rage,  of  craft,  of  gall, 

Cut  off  by  waves  that  are  thicker  than  blood. 


234  BLIND 

Come,  let  us  stand  at  the  judgment  place, 

An  oath  to  swear  to,  face  to  face, 

An   oath   of  bronze  no  wind   can   shake, 

An  oath    for  our  sons  and  their  sons  to  takel 

Come  hear  the  word,  repeat  the  word, 

Throughout  the   Fatherland  make  it  heard! 

We  will  never  forego  our  hate; 

We  have  all  but  a  single  hate; 

We  love  as  one,  we  hate  as  one, 

We  have  one  foe  and  one  alone 

ENGLAND! 

In  the  captain's  mess,  in  the  banquet  hall, 

Sat  feasting  the  officers,  one  and  all. 

Like  a  sabre  blow,  like  the  swing  of  a  sail, 

One  seized  his  glass  held  high  to  hail. 

Sharp  snapped  like  the  stroke  of  a  rudder's  play, 

Spoke  three  words  only:—  "To  the  Day!" 

On  he  went,  verse  after  verse.  His  face  red  and  dis 
torted  now,  his  two  clinched  fists  held  high  in  air — the 
actor  finished  this  hideous  chant  in  a  veritable  scream  of 
rage.  And  then  those  stolid  German  men  and  women 
rose  from  their  seats,  and  we  heard  a  burst  of  cries  that 
set  the  air  to  quivering.  I  felt  Dorothy's  hand  on  my  arm. 
Slowly  it  tightened. 

"Let's  get  out  of  this,"  I  whispered. 

"Please!" 

In  the  street  she  walked  along  in  silence  breathing  the 
cold  night  air  in  a  slow  resolute  fashion,  as  though  she 
were  bracing  herself  again  for  the  effort  to  bring 
together,  in  her  own  thoughts  and  loyalties,  two  nations 
already  so  wide  apart. 

"It's  hard  for  you  to  realize,"  she  said  to  me  after  a  lit 
tle,  "how  such  hatred  can  arise.  You  don't  know  how 
it  feels  to  keep  hearing  every  day  and  every  night  of 
more  friends  and  relatives  killed!  You  have  no  idea  of 
the  strain  of  it  all !" 


5, 
And  to  give  me  an  idea  of  that,  she  took  me  the  next 


BLIND  235 

afternoon  to  a  large  building  of  red  brick  which  had 

once  been  the  War  Academy.  As  we  climbed  the  broad 
stone  stairs  inside,  a  stout  middle-aged  woman  was 
coming  down,  supported  by  two  others.  She  was  sob 
bing;  her  face  was  a  fiery  red.  On  the  floor  above  was  a 
lofty  chamber  with  lead  colored  columns  at  either  end 
and  pictures  of  Prussian  heroes  upon  the  walls  and  ceil 
ing;  and  though  this  place  was  crowded,  all  was 
strangely  hushed  and  still.  Upon  a  placard  on  one  wall 
was  written  in  heavy  letters,  "Walk  softly  and  speak 
low."  In  the  center  of  the  hall  was  a  semi-circular  coun 
ter,  behind  which  sat  many  elderly  clerks,  most  of  them 
in  black  frock  suits — they  looked  like  undertakers.  And 
facing  this  counter  in  rows  of  chairs,  several  hundred 
men  and  women,  tense  and  silent,  motionless,  as  though 
at  some  gripping  tragedy,  sat  watching  a  great  red  cur 
tain,  which  was  restless,  never  still.  Every  few  moments 
it  leaped  apart,  as  a  messenger  came  quickly  through. 
Then  a  name  would  be  called  out,  and  some  man  or 
woman  would  jump  up  and  go  to  the  counter — would 
stand  there  rigid,  listening.  Here  Germany  learned  of 
her  dead. 

Forty-five  hundred  hospitals  reported  to  this  place 
each  week,  pouring  in  the  details  which  in  scores  of 
rooms  men  and  girls  by  hundreds,  writing  and  typewri 
ting,  copying,  comparing,  checking,  classifying,  with 
Prussian  precision  were  building  up  into  neat  typewrit 
ten  little  tales,  which  on  post  cards  every  day  were  sent 
out  by  the  thousands  to  German  towns  and  villages. 

There  was  a  "prisoner's  section"  here,  the  walls 
massed  solid  with  card  catalogues  in  which  was  kept  a 
record  of  every  enemy  taken  or  killed.  An  official  opened 
a  heavy  safe  and  lifted  out  an  enormous  ring  on  which 
were  strung  hundreds  of  medals  of  lead — and  as  he  put 
them  in  Dorothy's  hands  he  told  us  that  each  medal  had 
been  taken  from  the  body  of  a  Frenchman  killed  on  the 


236  BLIND 

field.  With  a  quick  start  she  handed  it  back.  He  showed 
us,  too,  an  amulet  from  the  body  of  a  Russian.  It  was  a 
little  block  of  wood,  old  and  worn  at  the  edges,  bearing 
in  faded  blue  and  gold  the  picture  of  some  Russian 
Saint,  with  a  dim  crude  suggestion  of  Holy  Moscow 
and  the  Kremlin  rising  in  the  background.  Some  sim 
ple  peasant  of  the  North  had  worn  this  faded  holy  thing 
to  guard  him  from  machine  guns.  There  were  other 
amulets  from  France  with  pictures  of  the  Mother  of 
Christ.  There  had  been  hundreds  of  them  here.  And  all 
these  little  safeguards,  day  by  day  and  night  by  night, 
through  bureau  after  bureau  and  city  after  city,  were 
constantly  travelling  back  into  the  enemy  countries,  to 
towns  and  little  villages,  to  come  at  last  into  the  hands 
that  had  placed  them  once  around  the  necks  of  many 
simple  men  now  dead. 

As  we  left  this  clearing  house  of  death,  along  a  dim- 
lit  hallway  we  found  a  group  of  motionless  women  sit 
ting  on  chairs  in  front  of  a  door.  Over  it  I  read  the 
sign,  "Apply  for  death  certificates  here."  Out  of  doors, 
a  huge  bright  moon  hung  just  over  the  end  of  the  street. 
And  by  its  light,  on  the  wall  outside,  I  saw  a  long  narrow 
band  of  white  made  up  of  newspaper  pages,  where  in 
thousands  of  columns  of  solid  type  were  the  names  of  the 
wounded,  the  missing,  the  dead.  And  almost  imper 
ceptibly  moving  along  this  band  of  white  were  dark  fig 
ures,  men  and  women — slowly  searching- — page  by  page. 

How  to  keep  up  the  morale  of  thecc  slnw  searchers  in 
the  dark?  Upon  our  last  afternoon  in  Berlin  we  went 
into  an  olrf  Lutheran  chapel.  It  v/cr>  painted  white 
inside  and  it  had  a  low  gallery  running  around.  Here 
they  were  about  to  hold  a  service  of  prayer  for  the  men 
at  the  front — and  the  small  church  was  rapidly  filling 
with  women.  In  groups  or  alone,  silently  they  came  in 
and  sat  down  in  the  stiff  wooden  pews.  A  few  of  them 
wore  heavy  crepe,  and  most  of  the  others  were  dressed 


BLIND  237 

in  black.  They  sat  looking  up  at  the  chancel,  where  with 
a  candle  on  either  side  stood  a  small  white  figure  of 
Christ.  Close  by  stood  a  larger  figure,  tall  and  stern  and 
robed  in  black,  the  pastor  of  the  Kaiser.  He  was  an  old 
man  and  slightly  stooped,  his  face  was  lean  and  power 
ful,  and  his  voice  though  very  low  had  a  deep  magnetic 
note,  as  he  stood  by  that  small  figure  in  white  and  inter 
preted  the  will  of  Christ  to  those  long  rows  of  silent 
women.  As  he  slowly  explained  to  them  how  this  was 
a  war  in  Jesus'  name,  I  wondered  what  my  compan 
ion  was  thinking  of  her  new  adopted  land.  Germany 
seemed  very  grim.  And  I  spoke  of  that  when  we  came 
out. 

"But  it  isn't  only  here,"  she  said.  "As  that  terrible 
old  man  talked  on,  I  was  thinking  of  other  clergymen, 
In  Russia,  France  and  England,  all  standing  up  in 
churches  before  long  rows  of  women  in  black.  And  I 
wondered,"  she  said  softly,  "how  much  harm  they  will 
do  to  the  influence  of  the  little  white  figure  there." 

How  her  mind  kept  shooting  ahead.  As  I  looked  at 
her,  it  seemed  to  me  that  her  thoughts  turned  sharply 
inward  then  to  the  question  so  many  millions  were  ask 
ing:  "And  what  will  this  war  do  to  me?"  It  had  done 
so  much  already.  How  changed  she  was  from  the  impul 
sive  warm  hearted  girl  of  a  few  months  before.  What 
enormous  breaches  had  been  made  in  her  old  standards 
and  ways  of  living,  what  devastating  vistas  had  opened 
up  before  her  v;ew. 

"And  yet,"  I  thought,  "if  she  really  loved  him,  she'd 
have  that  to  hold  to — some  solid  ground  beneath  her 
feet.  ...  Or  does  she?  And  is  all  this  only  my  imag 
ining — because  I  dislike  these  Germans  so?" 

6. 

That  night  Dorothy,  Steve  and  I  were  dining  together 
in  a  cafe  when  her  husband  came  and  found  her  there. 


238  BLIND 

In  case  he  came  home  she  had  left  word  at  her  apart 
ment  where  she  would  be.  "For  often,"  she  said,  "he  can 
be  here  only  for  a  few  hours,  you  know.  He  has  to  work 
so  frightfully  hard."  He  had  strikingly  changed  since  I'd 
seen  him  last.  His  face  had  a  grayish  color,  and  there 
were  haggard  markings  about  his  mouth  and  kindly 
eyes.  He  had  been  on  the  western  front  watching  the 
effect  of  certain  high  explosives.  He  looked  like  a  man 
coming  out  of  a  trance,  or  some  deep  inward  torturing 
struggle.  Months  afterward  I  learned  what  it  was.  He 
was  thinking  of  the  first  gas  attack.  It  was  to  take  place 
in  the  spring,  and  he  was  involved  in  the  preparations — 
but  he  could  give  us  no  hint  of  that.  Sharply,  as  he 
came  out  of  his  trance,  I  thought  I  saw  a  little  pang  of 
jealousy  stab  into  him  at  sight  of  Dorothy  with  us.  Her 
back  was  turned  when  he  came  in,  and  smiling  she  was 
reading  aloud  the  solemn  boyish  letter  which  Tommy 
had  written  her  from  school.  It  was  Steve  who  spied  her 
husband  first,  and  at  his  quick  low  exclamation  I  saw 
Dorothy  look  up  with  a  startled  jerk  of  her  head.  The 
next  moment  she  had  risen  and  gone  to  meet  him;  and 
when  they  came  back  to  our  table,  both  their  faces  were 
smiling  masks.  He  gave  us  a  warm  welcome. 

"I  am  so  glad  you  fellows  are  here !  It  has  been  lonely 
for  my  wife.  She  has  been  so  plucky  about  it,"  he  said. 

"Oh  fiddlesticks,  Max."  As  he  looked  at  her  then, 
there  was  no  doubt  of  his  love  for  her.  He  wanted  at 
once  to  know  our  plans;  and  when  I  spoke  of  our  idea 
of  taking  her  with  us,  a  sharp  little  contraction  came  on 
his  dark  sensitive  face. 

"That  is  good,"  he  answered  quickly.  "That  is  fine 
— the  very  thing!"  He  did  not  look  at  her  as  he  spoke. 
She  was  watching  him  intently. 

"But  Max,"  she  said,  "I've  been  getting  on  so  much 
better  now — I  have  work  and  I'm  making  friends.  Are 


BLIND  239 

you  sure  you  wouldn't  rather  have  me  stay?"  she  asked 
him. 

"No!"  he  said.  "You  want  to  go!  Why  shouldn't 
you?  What  could  be  more  natural?  If  you  know  they 
are  there,  you  won't  be  happy  here — and  I  want  you 
happy,  Dorothy.  If  you  stay  I  shall  worry  about  you. 
I  want  you  to  go!  Please  do  as  I  ask!  Besides,"  he 
added,  "my  work,  too,  is  often  on  the  eastern  front." 

She  caught  eagerly  at  this  point.  Perhaps  he  could 
even  come  to  her  there  more  often  than  if  she  stayed  in 
Berlin.  He  agreed  that  he  could;  but  as  I  watched,  I 
pitied  him;  and  in  the  questions  that  she  asked  I  could 
feel  Dorothy  pitying,  too,  and  mothering  him.  My  aver 
sion  left  me.  What  a  decent  sort  he  was,  after  all. 
Now  for  her  sake  he  was  trying  hard  to  be  very  friendly. 
He  asked  me  what  I  had  seen  in  Berlin,  and  he  said  that 
this  was  nothing  compared  to  what  I  should  see  at  the 
front. 

"When  I  met  you  last  in  America,  I  tried  to  tell  you 
how  it  would  be — but  I  myself  had  no  conception  of  this 
grip  of  war,"  he  said.  "No  will  of  my  own — I  only 
serve.  So  it  is  with  us  all — the  rich  and  the  poor,  the 
wise  and  the  foolish,  the  good  and  the  bad.  All  are 
working  for  an  idea.  What  is  the  idea?  Is  it  wholly 
good?  Is  it  entirely  just  and  right?  By  no  means!  On 
the  other  hand,  it  is  not  what  our  enemies  would  have 
you  believe  it.  They  lie  and  we  lie;  they  hate  and  we 
hate.  There  has  been  blame  upon  both  sides,  and  the 
issues  are  in  a  muddle  now.  But  one  thing  is  clear — the 
effect  of  this  on  all  the  peoples  of  Europe,"  he  said. 
"Everyone  has  been  transformed — by  a  force  so  resist 
less,  that  no  man  if  he  is  not  a  fool  can  look  on  without 
such  anxiety  as  he  never  felt  in  his  life  before!  When 
the  war  is  over,  how  shall  it  be?  Shall  the  world  plunge 
around  like  a  ship  in  a  storm,  with  the  old  anchors  cast 


240  BLIND 

aside — shall  we  have  revolutions  then?  Or  will  men, 
who  are  such  patriots  now,  go  blindly  back  to  their  little 
ruts  of  selfish,  selfish  living,  and  be  no  better  than 
before?  How  can  we  keep  the  middle  course?  How  can 
we  get  such  a  peace  as  will  bring  us  all  together  in  the 
one  great  job  of  building  a  world  where  war  will  be 
gone — and  tyranny — and  ignorance — and  all  this 
hating?" 

There  was  a  wistful  look  on  the  face  of  this  man 
who  had  given  his  life  thus  far  to  humanitarian  ideals. 

"What  kind  of  a  world  will  it  be?"  he  asked.  "All 
that  must  be  for  the  present  unknown.  We  look  ahead 
and  see  nothing  familiar — everything  strange.  Mean 
while  we  fight.  How  hard  it  is — how  strange  it  is!" 

Dorothy  had  been  watching  him  in  a  strained  and  self 
absorbed  sort  of  way,  as  though  she  were  thinking  hard. 

"How  soon  must  you  go  back  to  the  front?" 

"I  must  go  tomorrow,"  he  said. 

I  saw  her  wince.  He  saw  it  too — and  a  flash  of  joy 
came  in  his  eyes. 

"Poor  devil,"  I  thought.  "Yes,  you  love  her  all  right 
" — and  she  pities  you." 

Would  love  grow  out  of  this  pity,  I  wondered.  Only 
time  would  tell.  At  least  she  was  going  with  us  now. 
And  soon  we  four  together  were  discussing  the  details 
of  the  trip  to  the  town  near  the  eastern  front,  and  of 
how  he  would  manage  to  join  us  there,  with  that  keen 
animation  and  relief  with  which  so  many  millions  of 
people,  amid  the  strangeness  and  the  strain,  the  terrible 
bigness  of  the  war,  kept  turning  aside  to  little  arrange 
ments  affecting  their  own  pigmy  lives.  It  was  only  so 
that  they  kept  themselves  from  going  utterly  insane. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

1. 

STEVE'S  hospital  was  in  a  town  in  a  flat  bleak  region 
of  mines  and  mills,  where  at  times  you  could  hear  from 
the  eastern  front  the  deep  rumble  of  the  guns.  The 
hospital  had  been  a  theatre.  Gilt  signs  on  either  side 
the  door,  "Parkett  Rechts"  and  "Parkett  Links,"  directed 
spectators  to  their  seats.  But  the  seats  were  gone.  Gone 
too  was  all  the  tinsel,  the  cheap  plush,  the  tawdry  trim 
mings  of  this  house  of  laughter  and  of  tears;  and  as 
we  entered  that  first  day  the  place  was  bare  and  strangely 
still.  Through  the  tall  windows  on  one  side  the  sun 
threw  long  soft  bars  of  light.  On  the  ceiling  upon  bil 
lowy  clouds  lay  Venus  under  a  canopy,  with  nude  attend 
ants  around  her  and  pudgy  cupids  shooting  darts.  In 
the  rear  were  two  steep  galleries.  And  in  front,  over  the 
stage  which  had  mirrored  the  life  of  a  nation  in  peace, 
a  gray  steel  curtain  had  come  down.  Overhead  there 
hung  two  flags,  German  and  American,  and  between 
them  a  great  banner,  pure  white  with  a  heavy  cross  of 
red.  Above  this  cross  two  huge  masks,  Comedy  and 
Tragedy,  looked  down  upon  the  scene  below — looked 
down  upon  long  lines  of  beds  crowded  close  together. 
On  small  black  boards  above  them  were  the  names  of 
many  battlefields.  And  men  and  boys  with  close  cropped 
heads,  stretched  out  or  with  their  legs  and  arms  held  up 
in  slings  by  pulley  weights,  lay  motionless  and  silent 
there — some  looking  up  at  those  leering  masks,  others 
with  their  eyes  tight  closed. 

And  though  five  years  have  gone  since  then,  some  of 

241 


242  BLIND 

those  men  in  the  last  few  months  have  often  come  into 
my  room  at  night  to  join  our  silent  company. 

On  a  bed  near  the  door  lay  a  small  thin  man  of  middle 
age,  with  shaven  head,  a  sharp  eager  face,  high  cheek 
bones  and  hollow  cheeks.  He  lay  there  restlessly  watch 
ing  and  trying  by  moans  and  gestures  to  attract  some 
one's  attention.  Each  time  that  he  caught  my  glance, 
he  jabbered  Polish  imploringly.  No  one  of  his  neigh 
bors  could  understand,  but  at  last  an  Austrian  peasant 
called  from  his  bed  up  the  line, 

"I  know  his  talk.  I  know  what  he  says.  He  is  from 
Galicia." 

They  spoke  Polish  back  and  forth,  while  the  men  in 
beds  nearby  at  once  grew  deeply  curious.  Then  the 
Austrian  translated: 

"He  says  he  had  a  little  farm — and  he  had  a  wife  and 
two  grown  sons — and  he  says  he  had  four  cows.  His 
sons  they  took  for  the  army.  His  wife,  he  don't  know 
where  she  is — but  he  wants  to  know  about  his  cows.  If 
the  cows  are  gone  away,  he  says,  how  can  he  plough 
his  field  this  spring?  He  will  have  to  harness  in  his  wife, 
and  she  will  be  cross,  the  old  devil.  I  guess  he  will  never 
see  those  cows.  I  know  because  I  passed  that  way,  and 
it  was  bad  as  we  marched  along.  The  women  ran  out 
of  their  houses  and  held  up  their  little  brats  in  their 
arms,  squalling  at  us  for  some  bread.  We  gave  them  all 
the  bread  we  had,  but  we  had  to  go  thirty  miles  that 
day  and  half  of  us  almost  fell  down — we  got  so  weak 
with  nothing  to  eat.  So  the  next  day  we  kept  our  bread 
and  let  them  go  on  with  their  squalling,  the  brats.  How 
they  grabbed  their  little  bellies  and  howled !  It's  bad  for 
children  in  a  war,  but " 

"Stop  talking  about  what  you  saw,"  called  a  wounded 
soldier.  "What  does  the  Galician  say  ?" 

"He  says  he  drove  a  wagon  in  an  ammunition  train. 


BLIND  243 

One  night  both  his  feet  froze  hard,  and  the  next  day 
they  began  to  ache  and  grew  as  big  as  devils.  So  then 
he  says  he  was  sent  here,  and  now  they  have  cut  off  all 
his  toes,  and  his  feet  are  good  for  nothing.  He  says 
that  if  his  cows  are  lost  it  will  be  hard  and  very  slow  to 
go  with  such  feet  over  ploughed  ground  and  hold  his 
plough  and  drive  his  wife.  He  thinks  he  cannot  do  it. 
He  says  his  old  woman  is  too  weak — he  does  not  want 
to  make  her  pull.  But  what  can  he  do?  His  sons  are 
gone  and  he  thinks  they  are  killed.  He  says  war  is  bad 
for  a  peasant.  He  says  he  is  feeling  very  bad.  His  feet 
are  spoiled — he  cannot  walk.  He  says,  'How  can  I  walk 
back  to  my  farm  before  the  armies  get  my  cows  ?' ' 

Steve  had  come  up  and  was  listening. 

"Tell  him,"  he  said  kindly,  "that  when  he  is  well  he 
can  ride  home  free  on  a  railroad." 

When  this  was  translated,  the  peasant  doubtfully 
shook  his  head.  He  lay  there  all  day  thinking,  with 
anxious  moans  from  time  to  time.  Again  he  seemed 
fairly  bursting  to  talk. 

"He  thinks,"  explained  the  Austrian,  "that  they  will 
not  let  him  ride  free  on  a  train.  He  says  that  he  has 
thought  it  out — and  that  on  a  train  you  must  always 
pay.  And  he  says  that  when  he  came  here  he  had  some 
good  boots,  but  they  cut  them  off.  He  asks  you,  will 
you  get  those  boots?  He  thinks  they  are  out  in  the  beer 
garden  where  the  Sisters  pile  our  things.  You  take  them 
to  a  shoemaker,  he  says,  and  fix  them  so  they  fit  his 
club  feet,  so  he  can  walk  home  and  hunt  up  his  cows. 
He  says  that  if  his  cows  are  gone  he  and  his  old  wife 
will  die.  He  says  they  will  sit  in  their  house  and  die. 
He  says  he  is  feeling  very  bad." 


2. 

But  it  was  not  so  with  all  of  them.    Most  of  the  con- 


244  BLIND 

valescents  were  a  contented  looking  lot  In  a  bed  not 
far  away  sat  a  tall  self-satisfied  youth  to  whom  the  war 
was  a  fine  game. 

"You  see,"  he  told  me  earnestly,  "war  is  very  good  for 
me — for  I  can  get  promoted  fast.  In  my  military  school 
they  would  have  kept  me  working  years,  but  as  soon 
as  the  fighting  began  I  ran  away  from  school  with  my 
friend.  He  was  only  fifteen  years  and  three  months.  We 
heard  troops  marching  by  at  night  and  all  the  boys  got 
crazy.  They  sat  up  in  bed  and  talked,  but  all  except  us 
were  afraid  to  go.  We  climbed  from  our  windows  out 
on  the  roof,  we  slid  down  a  pipe  to  the  ground  and 
ran  to  the  road  and  hid  in  a  bush ;  and  when  some  more 
troops  came  by  in  the  dark  we  fell  in  and  marched  along. 
My  friend  is  now  an  officer.  He  writes  me  he  is  very 
glad.  You  see  in  the  army,"  he  ended,  "in  peace  promo 
tion  is  very  slow — you  must  wait  for  officers  to  die — 
while  now  they  are  killed  by  thousands!" 

"You  get  used  to  seeing  them  killed,  I  suppose."  But 
he  quite  missed  my  irony. 

"Oh  yes,"  he  replied,  "you  soon  become  so  you  do 
not  mind  it  at  all.  What  is  the  use  of  thinking  of  them  ? 
In  war  you  must  not  think  of  that.  You  must  just  learn 
to  do  as  you're  told." 

Learn  to  do  as  you  are  told.  There  was  another 
youngster  here  who  had  learned  this  so  thoroughly,  that 
in  one  dramatic  flash  he  gave  me  the  whole  stimmung 
of  war.  A  bullet  had  shattered  his  right  jaw.  As  they 
prepared  to  operate,  he  fought  hard  against  the  ether, 
and  they  could  barely  hold  him  down.  He  thought  he 
was  in  the  trenches ;  the  Russians  in  a  night  attack  were 
pouring  down  upon  him.  He  fought  them  off  and 
strained  to  rise,  and  with  glaring  mad  delirious  eyes  he 
kept  shouting,  "Die  Russlander!"  Then  a  little  German 
dentist,  who  was  to  assist  in  the  operation,  leaned  over 
and  snapped  into  his  ear  the  one  sharp  order,  "Achtung!" 


BLIND  245 

And  instantly  this  German  boy  stiffened  out  as  though 
on  parade! 

They  had  learned  to  do  as  they  were  told.  The  Great 
War  towered  over  these  men  and  boys,  crushing  down 
upon  their  minds  and  stamping  their  thinking  all  of  a 
piece.  They  were  under  its  spell;  they  could  not  think. 
At  the  order  "Achtung!"  each  one  grew  rigid  in  body 
and  soul.  System,  order,  discipline.  Was  the  whole 
world  becoming  like  that  ? 

But  surely,  I  thought,  among  all  these  men,  many  of 
them  so  silent,  there  must  be  questioning  going  on. 
There  was  one  who  had  lain  on  his  back  for  ten  weeks. 
Though  he  had  been  growing  worse  of  late,  he  did  not 
complain  of  his  sufferings.  He  slept  little.  Day  and 
night  he  stared  at  the  flags  and  the  laurel  wreaths,  and 
often  he  seemed  to  be  thinking  hard.  But  he  gave  not 
a  sign  of  what  he  was  thinking — until  one  day  he  spoke 
to  a  priest.  It  was  on  a  Sunday  morning.  A  table  altar 
had  been  placed  at  the  end  of  the  aisle  just  under  the 
stage,  with  two  tall  altar  candles  and  a  large  gilt  cru 
cifix.  The  priest  in  his  white  surplice  and  embroidered 
vestments,  attended  by  his  acolyte,  had  been  saying 
mass.  After  it  was  over,  he  strode  up  and  down  the  aisle 
furiously  declaiming  against  Russians,  French  and  Eng 
lish,  as  all  men  accursed  of  God.  And  then  this  wounded 
soldier,  who  for  ten  weeks  had  lain  so  still,  raised  on 
one  elbow  and  shook  his  fist. 

"Leave  us  alone!  Stop  your  shouting!"  he  cried,  in  a 
loud  shrill  quivering  tone.  "You  are  only  making  every 
one  worse!  Stop  talking  of  war!  What  do  you  know? 
We're  all  so  tired!  Leave  us  alone!" 

Late  that  evening  Steve  and  I  went  into  one  of  the 
upper  stage  boxes  where  a  doctor  slept  each  night.  Here 
was  a  small  iron  cot  with  an  old  red  quilt  upon  it,  and 
Steve  made  ready  to  go  to  bed  while  I  sat  watching  the 
scene  below,  There  was  but  one  soft  little  light  down 


246  BLIND 

there,  on  a  table  by  the  entrance  door.  The  night  nurse 
sat  beside  it.  All  the  rest  was  indistinct  and  dim  in  heavy 
shadows.  The  beds  looked  like  so  many  gray  ghosts. 
Out  of  them,  with  uncanny  effect,  the  legs  and  arms  that 
were  in  slings  pointed  up  into  the  dark.  The  place  was 
motionless  and  still,  except  for  deep  rough  breathings 
and  occasional  moaning  cries.  From  a  bed  back  under 
the  gallery  came  a  monotonous  pleading  voice. 
"Schwester,"  it  kept  saying.  "Sehwester,  Schwester, 
Schwester."  Suddenly  out  of  the  shadows  burst  a  sav 
age  beast-like  scream.  I  saw  the  dim  white  figure  of 
the  nurse  as  she  went  to  the  bed.  Then  morphine  and 
then  silence.  A  lung-shot  case  began  to  cough  blood. 
It  was  a  long  bubbling  horrible  cough,  and  he  kept  it  up 
at  intervals.  From  another  corner  presently  came  a  sud 
den  shout  of  "Charge!"  Then  came  another:  "Die 
Lazaret!"  And  in  a  moment  the  place  was  bedlam.  I 
heard  the  most  infernal  shrieks.  Men  suddenly  jumped 
up  in  bed  crying,  "Die  Russlander!"  Others  yelled, 
"Hurrah!  Hurrah!"  This  lasted  for  some  minutes.  By 
degrees  they  quieted  down;  but  out  of  the  silence  came 
a  sound  that  made  me  lean  out  of  the  box.  On  a  bed 
directly  under  me  lay  a  sleeper  tensely  whispering. 
Abruptly  it  stopped  and  in  his  dream  he  gave  a  quick 
delighted  laugh.  Again  the  whispering  went  on. 

And  listening  there,  I  got  startling  hints  of  the  vast 
and  dazzling  feverish  universe  of  dreamland  that  was 
hovering  every  night  over  thirty  million  fighting  men — 
not  only  dreams  of  horror  but  human,  comic,  intimate 
dreams,  compounded  of  the  memories,  the  inner  thoughts, 
desires,  passions,  hopes  and  schemes  of  these  tiny  atoms 
caught  into  the  storm.  I  thought  of  four  thousand 
hospitals  like  this  scattered  over  Germany,  and  of  other 
hospitals  in  Austria,  Russia,  England  and  France,  and 
of  the  men  by  millions  who  lay  on  their  backs  and 
silently  stared  at  bare  ceilings  and  at  walls,  at  flags  and 


BLIND  247 

wreaths  and  garlands,  and  at  the  huge  red  cross  of 
Christ.  And  I  wondered  what  they  thought  about  war. 
What  would  they  say  to  their  wives  at  home  and  what 
would  they  teach  to  their  children?  Would  they  say, 
like  that  tall  smiling  boy  who  had  run  away  from  school, 
"War  is  very  good  for  us" — or  would  they,  like  the 
silent  man  who  had  lain  for  ten  weeks  dying,  shake 
their  fists  at  the  powers  that  be,  and  cry,  "We  are  tired ! 
Leave  us  alone  1" 


3. 

Though  I  had  seen  much  of  Dorothy,  there  is  little 
that  I  can  recall.  The  other  impressions  pouring  in  were 
so  vivid  and  tumultuous.  I  made  trips  down  into 
Austria  and  along  the  eastern  front.  Each  time  I  came 
back  to  the  hospital  I  found  my  cousin  working  hard. 
Plainly  it  was  an  immense  relief  for  her  to  be  here 
among  her  own  people;  and  I  could  see  she  was  grate 
ful  to  Max  for  having  so  promptly  urged  her  to  come, 
in  spite  of  the  pang  that  it  cost  him.  And  as  though  she 
grudged  herself  the  relief  she  felt  in  being  here,  Dorothy 
worked  the  harder.  At  all  hours  day  and  night  I  would 
find  her  at  a  bedside  or  going  on  some  nurse's  errand, 
or  smilingly  serving  coffee  to  a  group  of  convalescents, 
or  down  on  her  knees  scrubbing  the  floor  with  a  deter 
mined  little  scowl.  Weeks  passed  and  her  husband  did 
not  come.  She  seldom  spoke  to  me  of  him  now,  but  I 
knew  he  was  constantly  in  her  mind.  Why  did  he  stay 
away  so.  long?  Was  it  only  his  work,  or  did  he  think 
that  she  could  be  happy  only  with  us? 

She  hinted  this  not  to  me  but  to  Steve,  and  told  him 
how  it  tortured  her.  I  noticed  that  she  avoided  me.  Gone 
was  the  warm  intimacy  of  the  days  we  had  spent  in 
Berlin.  She  turned  to  Steve.  He  was  her  chief,  and  she 
slaved  for  him.  Old  Steve  was  in  his  element  here,  talk 
ing  little,  working  hard.  He  had  two  young  surgeons 


248  BLIND 

under  him.  His  predecessor  had  left  loose  ends.  He 
brought  them  together.  Through  the  punctilious  eti 
quette  and  the  rigid  German  system,  his  work  was  more 
or  less  bound  up  with  that  of  other  hospitals  in  the  town. 
He  found  certain  holes  in  this  German  perfection,  and 
he  began  to  fill  them  up,  or  to  evade  the  endless  red  tape. 

"God  pity  the  world,"  he  said  to  me  once,  "if  these 
people  win  the  war." 

But  this  was  the  only  expression  of  that  kind  I  can 
recall.  Here  were  wounded  men,  and  he  was  a  surgeon 
- — and  he  had  time  for  nothing  else.  Let  the  surgeons 
stick  to  their  jobs  and  try  to  keep  a  few  young  men  in 
Europe  alive  when  the  struggle  was  over. 

And  this  attitude  in  Steve  made  Dorothy  turn  to  him 
now  as  a  tower  of  strength.  With  me  it  was  different. 
We  often  jarred  on  one  another.  For  with  that  vague 
self  reproach  for  having  left  Berlin  to  come  here,  more 
determined  even  than  before  to  be  loyal  to  her  husband's 
land,  at  first  she  had  been  doubly  anxious  that  in  the 
stories  I  sent  home  I  should  miss  nothing  good  and  see 
nothing  bad  in  these  wounded  German  boys.  This  made 
me  obstinately  dwell  on  my  deepening  feeling  against 
Berlin.  And  the  very  fact,  that  my  cousin  and  I  had 
meant  so  much  to  each  other  before,  made  it  all  the 
harder  now — brought  quarrels  so  sharp  that  for  days 
together  she  would  leave  me  severely  alone.  Then  I 
would  remember  the  position  she  was  in;  I  would  get 
a  sense  of  her  loneliness,  admire  her  pluck  and  cheer 
fulness.  And  Dorothy's  old  personality,  so  warm  and 
blithe  and  intimate,  would  cast  its  spell  upon  me. 
Humbly  I  would  try  my  best  to  be  friends  with  her 
again,  and  for  a  time  I  would  succeed  and  we  would  be 
nearly  as  before.  But  I  could  feel  the  thought  of  her 
husband  always  in  the  back  of  her  mind.  This  pity  for 
him,  and  this  gratitude,  was  it  bringing  her  to  care  for 
the  man? 


BLIND  249 

When  he  arrived  one  afternoon,  she  was  busy  at  some 
work  by  a  window.  Her  back  was  turned.  All  at  once, 
though  he  had  not  spoken  a  word,  I  saw  her  give  a 
little  start.  She  jumped  up,  and  with  a  sharp  cry  went 
to  him  quickly  and  into  his  arms.  I  remember  the  look 
of  joy  on  his  face  as  I  saw  it  for  a  moment  then. 

"By  bringing  her  here,"  I  thought  grimly,  "and  mak 
ing  her  feel  she  deserted  him,  we  have  thrown  her  into 
his  arms." 

We  did  not  see  them  again  until  night. 

He  had  just  come  from  the  western  front,  and  all 
were  eager  to  question  him.  His  replies  were  deter 
minedly  cheerful,  but  I  kept  watching  his  gaunt  face  and 
the  queer  self-absorption  there;  and  I  felt  Steve  and 
Dorothy  doing  the  same.  What  had  happened  to  the 
man?  What  inner  thought  was  haunting  him?  He  was 
thinking  of  that  gas  attack.  He  could  still  give  us  no 
hint  of  the  plan;  he  had  to  keep  it  to  himself;  and  it 
must  have  been  like  fire  inside.  For  despite  his  little 
faults,  Max  was  a  chap  of  fine  instincts;  he  had  given 
his  whole  life  so  far  to  the  work  of  saving  other  lives — 
and  looking  back  now,  I  think  I  can  get  an  inkling  of 
the  struggle  that  had  aged  him  in  this  startling  way, 
made  him  so  thin  and  gaunt  and  gray.  But  I  doubt  if 
he  had  any  feeling  of  guilt.  In  his  logical  German  way 
he  had  struggled  hard  to  bring  his  new  work  into  line 
with  the  old.  This,  too,  would  save  lives — millions.  For 
he  believed — and  he  had  good  reason — that  gas  would 
speedily  end  the  war.  He  hinted  at  this  by  what  he  said 
of  his  work  on  high  explosives.  The  more  murderous 
they  were,  he  declared,  the  sooner  the  butchery  would 
cease. 

"I  was  wrong  in  what  I  said  before.  War  is  sheer 
murder,"  he  declared.  "And  the  very  worst  of  it  is  its 
disguise,  its  camouflage — all  the  splendid  elements  that 
hide  what  it  really  is !  You  draw  far  away  and  you  look 


250  BLIND 

back  and  you  can  see  it  is  only  blood — but  when  you 
are  there,  your  very  mind  is  blinded  by  the  flashes — 
flashes  from  the  souls  of  men — flashes  from  the  soul  of 
war!  And  yet  it  is  false  and  it  is  wrong!" 

"If  it  were  only  over!"  breathed  Dorothy.  She  was 
sitting  beside  him.  I  saw  his  hand  close  quickly  on  hers ; 
and  with  that  new  look  of  happiness  which  I  had  seen 
when  he  arrived,  he  said, 

"It  cannot  last  much  longer  now.  We  shall  soon  go 
back  to  America." 


4. 

I  drew  close  to  him  in  the  next  two  weeks,  and  to  his 
view  of  the  conflict — for  Max  had  been  able  to  arrange 
to  take  me  to  the  western  front.  I  shall  give  but  a  few 
of  the  memories: 

It  was  still  dark  and  the  stars  were  out,  for  we  had 
made  an  early  start.  In  a  big  gray  army  car  we  had  left 
the  old  city  of  Lille  and  were  speeding  down  a  long- 
straight  road  between  two  endless  rows  of  trees,  tall 
delicate  gray  phantoms,  the  poplar  trees  of  France.  But 
I  saw  no  French  people  there — except  once  when  in  the 
dim  blue  light  we  came  up  to  a  woman  and  a  huge  dog, 
together  dragging  a  cart  through  the  mud.  On  the  cart 
sat  a  small  boy  wrapped  to  his  ears.  As  we  passed  them, 
with  an  angry  jerk  the  woman  turned  her  cart  into  the 
ditch,  while  the  big  dog  barked  good-naturedly  and 
slowly  wagged  his  bushy  tail — a  friendly  international 
wag  that  had  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  case. 

We  were  running  along  the  Bavarian  lines  about  three 
miles  behind  their  front.  The  fields  lay  still  in  the 
starlight,  with  little  blueish  veils  of  mist  rising  out 
of  the  hollows  flooded  from  incessant  rains.  We  sped 
through  ruined  villages,  empty,  silent,  bleak  as  death. 
From  the  east  came  a  stronger  glow  of  light,  and  from 


BLIND  251 

over  there  by  the  rising  sun  .the  noise  of  big  guns  grew 
louder.  We  passed  a  battalion  of  men  and  boys,  unkempt 
and  gaunt,  clothes  yellow  with  mud;  and  a  few  minutes 
later  we  stopped  our  car  near  a  deep  muddy  hollow. 
Here  was  a  German  battery.  By  each  one  of  the  four 
guns  stood  some  thirty  shrapnel  shells  in  their  tall  wicker 
cases.  The  fire  was  being  directed  by  an  officer  in  the 
tower  of  a  church  some  distance  off.  His  orders  came 
by  telephone  to  an  officer  in  a  dugout  close  by,  and  the 
latter  kept  calling  them  out  to  his  men. 

"Fertig!" 

Then  a  leaping  roar  and  a  deep  long  swishing  sigh  as 
the  big  shell  went  rushing  off.  It  took  on  a  savage  animal 
sound,  and  in  a  few  seconds  we  heard  the  crash  as  it 
burst  in  the  midst  of  the  enemy.  Had  men  been  killed? 
The  man  in  the  church  tower  knew — but  these  men 
here  might  go  through  the  war  and  never  see  one  of 
their  victims,  I  thought.  Murderers?  No — machinists! 
They  glanced  at  me  from  time  to  time  with  that  same 
superior  smile  I  have  had  from  other  men  in  skilled 
trades,  in  mills  and  automobile  shops. 

Later  that  morning  Max  took  me  down  into  a  bomb 
proof  chamber.  The  roof  had  been  of  heavy  concrete, 
and  over  that  ten  feet  of  earth — but  a  great  French 
shell  had  struck  above  and  ploughed  down  through  into 
the  midst  of  some  forty  soldiers  sleeping  below;  it  had 
burst  and  blown  everything  to  bits.  The  big  hole  was 
open  to  the  sky.  Beneath  was  a  mass  of  concrete,  dirt 
and  ragged  bits  of  uniforms.  Many  dead  bodies  were 
still  down  there.  From  one  a  yellow  fist  stuck  up  with  a 
lead  pencil  clinched  in  it  tight.  Over  all  was  the  smell  of 
iodoform. 

"This  is  ugly.  This  is  war.  But  this  had  to  be,"  Max 
said  to  me.  "As  time  goes  on,  it  will  get  worse.  New 
ways  of  killing  will  be  invented.  It  is  the  business  of 


252  BLIND 

war  to  kill — and  the  quicker  the  killing  the  sooner  the 
end.  Remember  that  when  you  get  home  and  you  read 
of  the  work  we  still  must  do." 

I  looked  at  the  dark  strained  face  of  the  man  and  won 
dered  of  what  he  was  thinking. 

In  a  little  French  village  that  day  we  came  to  a  small 
hospital,  in  what  had  been  a  children's  school.  In  one 
room  on  a  rough  pine  bed  a  young  French  prisoner  lay 
on  his  back;  and  as  he  stared  up  at  the  ceiling,  there 
were  big  beads  of  sweat  on  his  face.  Both  his  legs,  on 
the  night  before,  had  been  amputated  above  the  knees. 
He  looked  at  me,  gave  a  quick  stern  frown  and  then 
went  on  staring  as  before.  I  felt  an  intruder  and  turned 
away.  Above  his  bed,  filling  half  the  wall,  was  a  large 
school  map  of  France,  and  near  it  hung  "The  Rights  of 
Man,"  writ  large  in  French  for  children. 

As  we  went  on  that  afternoon,  everywhere  to  the 
horizon  crawled  dark  sluggish  masses  made  up  of 
wagons,  horses,  men.  There  was  deep  intensity  in  it  all 
and  an  elemental  bleakness.  Everything  that  men  had 
made  in  ages  in  this  peaceful  land  was  stripped  naked, 
jagged,  rough.  The  .villages  through  which  we  passed 
were  nothing  but  mire,  ruined  homes.  Yes,  the  French 
had  a  right  to  be  bitter!  And  the  savage  irony  of  it  was 
that  now  they  were  being  forced  to  continue  the  work 
of  destruction  themselves.  They  were  shelling-  their  own 
villages.  In  one  we  entered  a  little  church.  There  were 
shell  holes  in  the  walls  and  the  shattered  figures  of  Saints 
on  the  floor.  We  climbed  by  rickety  ladders  a  hundred 
feet  to  the  bells  above,  and  from  there  looked  off  to  the 
westward.  The  sun  had  just  gone  below  the  horizon. 
Outlined  against  the  afterglow  stood  a  line  of  delicate 
poplars ;  and  nearer,  over  a  village  nestling  into  the  edge 
of  a  wood,  moment  by  moment  rose  lovely  little  clouds 
of  white  that  went  wreathing  up  to  the  heavens — the 
afternoon  fire  of  the  French,  which  the  Germans  called 


BLIND  253 

"The  Evening  Prayer."  These  little  prayers  hung  lov 
ingly  around  the  church  this  side  the  village.  From  each 
came  a  dull  sullen  boom.  Suddenly  there  was  a  cloud  of 
brown  dust,  and  when  it  cleared  we  saw  that  a  part  of 
the  church  tower  had  come  down. 

The  twilight  deepened  rapidly,  and  it  was  night  when 
we  left  our  car  and  started  on  foot  for  the  front  line, 
splashing  heavily  through  the  mire  of  a  narrow  country 
lane.  It  had  begun  to  rain  again.  For  some  time  I  heard 
only  the  crash  of  big  guns.  Then  came  the  swift  ugly 
.buzz  of  a  bullet  over  our  heads — and  another  and 
another.  Before  us  a  rocket  shot  up  in  the  dark.  In  the 
flare  that  it  made  I  saw  a  small  farm-house  about  a  half 
a  mile  away,  the  place  where  we  were  to  spend  the  night. 
Over  it  with  long  weird  sighs  the  shrapnel  shells  were 
flying. 

When  we  arrived,  both  the  house  and  the  barn  were 
perfectly  dark.  Not  a  glimmer  of  light  through  the 
windows  to  attract  shell  fire  here.  Only  bullets  from 
French  rifles  struck  with  a  smack  on  the  side  of  the 
barn  or  whizzed  through  the  narrow  open  space  between 
it  and  the  farm-house.  I  looked  toward  the  sound  of  the 
firing.  At  first  there  was  nothing  but  dense  rain.  Then 
up  went  a  rocket  again,  throwing  a  wild  uncanny  light 
on  a  bleak  expanse  of  watery  mud,  on  fields  and  trees 
and  gleaming  pools — and  roused  afresh  by  this  sight  of 
their  world,  the  men  down  there  in  the  hollow  fiercely 
redoubled  their  fire.  Here  the  French  and  German  lines 
were  close  together.  Plenty  of  blood  had  been  spilled 
in  these  fields;  but  in  all  this  time,  the  Germans  had 
pushed  forward  only  two  hundred  yards.  And  I  got  the 
feeling  of  No  Man's  Land  as  a  broad  brown  band  of  mud 
reaching  for  nearly  three  hundred  miles  and  winding 
like  some  monstrous  snake,  which  as  the  line  swaved 
back  and  forth  was  always  slowly  writhing. 

Later  I  heard  soldiers  singing,  faintly  as  though  far 


254  BLIND 

away — but  then  I  discovered  that  the  sound  came  from 
underneath  our  feet;  and  by  a  ladder  I  followed  Max 
down  into  the  "Villa  Sorgen  Frei,"  deep  under  a  manure 
pile.  It  was  a  hole  with  walls  of  logs  and  a  ceiling  so 
low  we  could  not  stand.  A  small  stove  made  it  stifling 
hot.  But  here  we  stayed  for  an  hour  or  so  with  eight 
or  ten  Bavarian  boys.  A  drum,  a  mouth  organ  and  a 
flute,  an  old  iron  gong  and  a  clumsy  guitar  with  tele 
phone  wires  for  the  strings,  made  up  this  soldier  orches 
tra.  Leading  them  was  a  dark  little  man,  who  in  Munich 
had  played  in  a  cafe.  With  an  old  hat  on  the  side  of  his 
head,  spectacles  on  the  end  of  his  nose  and  a  drumstick 
for  a  baton,  he  sternly  rapped  for  order,  and  carried  his 
small  orchestra  through  "Puppchen"  for  our  benefit. 
After  that  came  folk  songs — "Roslein  auf  der  Heide," 
"Morgen  Rot"  and  many  more.  Then  they  shouted  out 
a  song  that  he  himself  had  written,  to  the  glory  of  that 
bomb-proof  hole  and  the  courage  of  men  "in  the  iron 
rain."  The  refrain  was  to  the  machine  gun.  Another 
folk  song  for  Germany. 

A  little  after  midnight  we  went  into  a  bomb-proof 
under  the  barn,  where  a  couple  of  old  mattresses  had 
been  spread  for  us  on  the  floor;  and  I  lay  for  hours  lis 
tening  to  the  rifles  and  machine  guns  that  sounded  like 
steel  riveters  on  the  high  buildings  of  New  York.  What 
was  it  they  were  building  here?  Half  waking  and  half 
sleeping,  the  images  of  what  I  had  seen  kept  rising  pell 
mell  in  my  dreams,  and  confusedly  I  grappled  for  some 
meaning  in  it  all.  But  things  looked  black  to  me  that 
night.  If  war  were  hell  and  nothing  else,  one  might 
have  hoped  that  in  sheer  disgust  men  would  learn  their 
lesson  and  this  struggle  would  be  the  last.  But  I  saw 
little  hope  of  this  disgust — for  I  had  seen  what  Max 
had  called  the  flashes  from  the  soul  of  war,  its  iron  grip 
on  the  souls  of  men.  Millions  of  them  would  forget  the 
dreariness,  the  weariness,  the  icy  mud,  the  stinking  death, 


BLIND  255 

and  in  after  years  would  remember  only  the  glory  and 
the  thrills.  Such  men  would  not  want  disarmament. 

"And  who  are  you,"  a  great  voice  asked,  "to  talk  to 
these  men  of  my  ugliness?  What  have  you  in  your 
little  life  ever  known  that  can  call  to  men  as  I  call,  pull 
ing  them  out  of  their  creeds  and  greeds  to  give  up  their 
lives  by  the  millions,  to  shake  the  entire  civilized  world? 
There  are  many  shams,  many  idols  of  peace,  that  will 
come  down  before  I  am  through.  You  will  have  to  be 
sure  of  what  you  believe  before  you  can  stand  against 
me — sure  as  you  never  were  before.  For  things  are 
going  to  crash,  these  days,  and  the  world  is  going  to  be 
reborn." 

Just  before  daylight  we  got  up  and  started  down  the 
narrow  lane.  Already  the  stars  were  growing  faint  and 
the  pools  of  water  on  the  fields  slowly  turned  to  silver. 
Masses  of  wagons,  horses  and  men  were  still  crawling 
over  the  landscape,  as  they  had  crawled  all  through  the 
night,  and  would  crawl  through  weary  years  to  come. 
As  we  reached  our  car  and  started  on,  the  light  grew 
steadily  stronger — and  uglier  and  drearier  grew  the 
world  around  us.  It  was  Sunday  morning.  A  little  after 
sunrise,  we  met  two  peasant  women  in  black  picking  their 
way  toward  a  village  church.  They  stepped  into  the 
ditch  and  glared  at  us  as  our  car  spattered  mud  upon 
their  clothes.  Suddenly  I  remembered  the  millions  of 
women  in  empty  homes ;  and  I  wondered  what  they  were 
thinking — what  they  were  going  to  teach  to  their  sons? 

5. 

All  through  the  spring  and  into  the  summer  I  stayed 
on  in  Germany,  and  I  paid  frequent  visits  to  Steve  and 
Dorothy  in  those  months.  Meanwhile  the  gas  attacks 
had  begun,  and  I  remember  clearly  still  an  intense  dis 
cussion  with  Dorothy  in  which  she  defended  her  hus 
band's  work  as  a  means  of  ending  the  slaughter  and  of 


256  BLIND 

making  war  impossible  for  the  generations  to  come.  I 
could  feel  that  for  my  cousin  it  had  become  a  nightmare 
now.  She  had  lost  her  eagerness  to  make  me  see  the 
German  side.  Waking  and  dreaming  she  was  obsessed 
by  one  idea — to  get  it  over  and  go  home.  To  go  to 
America  with  Max  and  help  him  take  up  his  old  work — 
that  was  the  goal  on  which  she  had  turned  homesick 
eyes.  There  was  no  doubt  of  her  loving  him  now. 

Then  one  day  they  brought  him  in  on  a  stretcher  from 
the  train.  He  had  contracted  typhus  during  his  work  on 
the  eastern  front.  For  several  weeks  his  life  hung  in  the 
balance,  Steve  watching  him  like  a  brother,  and  Dorothy 
barely  leaving  his  side.  I  came  there  on  a  visit  when 
he  was  convalescing;  and  I  can  remember  him  vividly  • 
still — propped  up  in  his  bed,  his  face  thin  and  pallid  with 
hollow  cheeks,  something  softened  in  his  smile,  and  a 
new  gentleness  in  his  eyes.  He  was  like  a  man  come 
through  a  fire  in  which  his  spirit  had  been  purged,  his 
vision  cleared.  Much  of  what  he  told  me  then  I  have 
long  since  forgotten;  but  often  in  a  startling  manner, 
late  at  night  in  this  silent  room,  I  seem  to  hear  him 
speak  again — at  times  in  a  tone  precise  and  sure,  again 
in  a  groping  searching  way — of  the  change  that  had 
come  over  him. 

"Before  the  war,"  he  told  me,  "I  was  a  man  with  one 
idea — to  stop  the  waste  of  human  life.  But  what  a  ruth 
less  world  it  was.  It  was  over  there  in  your  mines  and 
mills  that  I  learned  to  know  the  deadly  wrork  of  the 
gases  we  are  using  now.  Your  countrymen  are  indig 
nant  now,  but  then  they  did  not  seem  to  care  how 
many  thousands  were  choked  to  death — and  for  me  the 
world  of  peace  became  a  dark  jungle  of  complications. 
So  war  was  like  a  dazzling  flash,  and  its  stark  sim 
plicity  blinded  me.  Here  almost  in  a  moment  was  a 
world  on  a  higher  plane — men  lifted  out  of  their  selfish 
lives.  But  now  I  am  changed.  In  a  year  I  have  seen  too 


BLIND  257 

much  of  its  horror,  the  ruin  and  havoc  in  humble  homes, 
the  unscrupulous  scheming  in  the  high  places.  There  is 
a  deep  falsity  in  it  all.  It  has  been  not  food  but  brandy. 
We  must  get  back  to  a  world  of  peace — in  spite  of  its 
perplexities.  We  must  find  tolerance  again,  and  as 
brothers  all  together  we  must  work  our  problems  out, 
slow  and  toilsome  though  it  be.  I  put  my  hope  in  Science 
acting  through  a  wider  and  more  generous  education 
upon  all  the  ignorant  masses  of  humanity,  upon  a  new 
generation  with  these  hatreds  left  behind. 

"I  do  not  believe  that  the  war  will  end  in  any  lasting 
dominance  by  the  drill-masters  in  Berlin,  or  in  Paris  or 
in  London.  I  believe  it  has  let  loose  forces  which  will 
rise  against  those  gentlemen  and  throw  off  their  despotic 
rule.  You  talk  against  our  gas  attacks — but  they  are 
only  a  first  step  in  developments  more  startling.  Let  the 
drill-masters  plan  as  they  please.  We  men  of  science, 
whom  they  despise,  are  going  to  kill  the  thing  they  love. 
We  shall  invent  such  instruments  for  the  annihilation  of 
life,  that  to  the  blind  foolish  people  of  all  countries  we 
shall  demonstrate  that  war  is  no  longer  possible — and  so 
this  butchery  will  stop.  But  I  do  not  like  to  think/' 
he  said,  "of  our  drill-masters  in  Berlin  in  the  first  brief 
years  of  their  triumph.  For  they  will  seem  to  triumph  at 
first — before  the  new  forces  against  them  rise — and  in 
those  brutal  rigid  years  I  don't  want  to  live  in  this  coun 
try.  It  will  not  be  my  Germany,  it  will  be  theirs.  How 
they  will  rule !  They  will  claim  all  the  credit  for  winning 
the  war.  In  their  blindness  they  will  crush  us  down — the 
scientists,  the  thinkers — without  whose  aid  they  would 
have  been  beaten." 

In  his  own  case  this  prophecy  was  realized  with  a 

tragic  abruptness.    Long  before  he  was  fully  recovered 

from  his  serious  illness,  he  received  a  telegram  ordering 

him  back  to  his  work.   And  a  few  weeks  later,  from  that 

building  in  Berlin  with  the  big  red  velvet  curtain,  a  post 


258  BLIND 

card  came  to  Dorothy  telling  of  her  husband's  death. 

Steve  wired  to  me  the  same  day.  When  I  came  I  found 
her  in  her  room,  and  at  sight  of  her  face  I  went  to  her 
iquickly. 

"Oh  my  dear  girl — I'm  so  sorry!"  I  whispered.  She 
was  shaking  in  my  arms.  But  only  for  a  moment.  Then 
she  drew  away  and  said,  in  a  low  hard  unnatural  voice, 

"It  was  murder — nothing  but  murder,  you  know. 
They  couldn't  wait  till  he  was  out  of  bed.  They  just 
took  him  and  killed  him.  No  need  at  all  Just  plain 
stupid  German  tyranny!"  She  stopped  for  a  moment, 
and  then  she  asked,  "Will  you  help  me  now  to  get  home, 
Larry?  I  hate  this  country — I  hate  war.  I  want  to  be 
back  at  Seven  Pines." 

I  promised  I  would  take  her  home.  But  first  there  was 
his  funeral.  And  so  long  as  I  live  I  shall  not  forget  that 
bleak  Prussian'  village  where  Max  Sonfeldt  had  been 
born,  and  where  on  that  October  day  his  people  laid  him 
in  the  earth. 

The  village  was  a  small  affair  of  some  forty  houses, 
most  of  them  of  brick  and  white  plaster,  straggled  along 
a  broad  main  street  which  was  a  slough  of  water  and 
mud.  Above  were  heavy  autumn  clouds.  The  bare  trees 
on  either  side  were  blown  by  a  raw  cold  wind  from  the 
North.  We  went  to  the  home  of  Max's  father,  who  ran 
both  the  savings  bank  and  the  general  store  of  the  village. 
We  found  him  in  the  rear  of  his  store,  in  a  small  stuffy 
dwelling-room  but  half  heated  by  a  stove.  He  was  a 
harsh  old  Prussian,  with  short  bristling  gray  hair  and 
beard.  His  little  blue  eyes  were  cold  and  unfriendly.  He 
had  not  approved  of  his  son's  marriage,  and  since  then 
he  had  grown  to  hate  the  very  name  of  America,  the 
country  which  was  supplying  munitions  to  all  Germany's 
foes.  His  wife  came  in,  a  stout  old  woman  dressed  in 
black.  Her  face  looked  red  from  crying,  and  it  quivered 
violently  as  she  took  Dorothy's  hand  and  led  her  into 


BLIND  259 

another  room.  Steve  and  I  were  left  with  the  father. 
For  a  time  he  spoke  of  his  son's  death  and  his  own  undy 
ing  hate  of  England. 

"Now  in  a  few  minutes  the  funeral  will  begin,"  he 
said.  "I  must  ask  you  to  excuse  me.  My  wife  will  need 
me  by  her  side.  On  the  march  to  the  church,"  he  added, 
"the  widow  will  go  with  us."  He  paused  a  moment. 
Then  he  asked,  "Will  she  return  to  America?"  When 
we  told  him  that  she  would,  he  nodded  grimly  and 
opened  the  door. 

We  walked  to  the  small  village  square.  In  the  middle 
rose  a  monument,  a  stark  granite  column  with  a  brazen 
eagle  overhead.  Close  by  was  an  old  Lutheran  church,  a 
long  low  building  of  gray  stone  with  a  heavy  square 
tower  at  the  front.  Life  stirred  on  the  village  street.  It 
was  a  Sunday  morning.  Old  men  in  queer-shaped  tall 
silk  hats  began  gathering  on  the  commons.  Most  of  them 
wore  medals.  With  bearded  faces  harsh  and  set,  these 
old  Prussian  countrymen  looked  what  they  were,  shrewd 
hard-working  farmers  who  had  spent  their  entire  lives 
struggling  with  a  stubborn  soil  and  had  wrung  a  living 
out  of  it.  Some  had  fought  in  France  as  boys,  and  the 
medals  glittering  on  their  chests  took  on  a  grim  signifi 
cance.  Some  women  and  children  had  gathered,  too,  but 
they  had  formed  a  group  of  their  own  which  kept  to  the 
other  side  of  the  street.  The  bell  began  tolling.  A  man 
arrived,  bearing  an  iron  funeral  wreath;  and  in  the 
meantime  up  the  street  came  a  thin  old  man  with  a  white 
mustache.  At  sight  of  him  all  the  men  formed  in  line. 
He  faced  them  for  a  moment,  issued  a  sharp  order,  and 
they  went  marching  down  the  street  to  a  house  not  far 
away.  They  came  back  with  a  large  black-eagle  flag  and 
went  to  the  old  merchant's  house.  The  pall-bearers  went 
inside.  Presently  they  came  out  with  the  coffin,  followed 
by  Max's  parents  with  Dorothy  between  them;  and 
slowly  they  made  "the  march  to  the  church," 


260  BLIND 

It  was  a  cramped  and  narrow  place.  On  both  sides 
were  galleries  of  ugly  varnished  yellow  wood.  Little 
gusts  of  chill  raw  air  came  sifting  in  through  the  high 
windows.  The  organ  had  begun  to  play,  and  the  old 
men  in  the  front  rows  began  to  sing  in  harsh  thin  voices. 
Now  in  this  freezing  holy  place  I  could  see  the  breaths 
of  the  women  around  me,  and  these  little  clouds  of  breath 
began  to  grow  unsteady. 

I  caught  a  glimpse  of  Dorothy's  face.  She  sat  rigidly 
staring  up  at  the  pastor,  who  in  his  long  black  gown  had 
risen  and  begun  his  address.  He  spoke  of  Max,  the  boy 
they  had  known,  of  his  childhood  in  the  village.  He 
spoke  of  "the  bereaved  young  widow"  and  of  "the 
mother  of  the  deceased."  Thousands  of  brave  men,  he 
said,  had  given  their  lives  for  the  Fatherland,  and  many 
thousands  still  must  die  for  the  sake  of  their  country  and 
their  God.  And  this  was  hard  and  terrible.  But  their 
cause  was  just.  I  saw  my  cousin  look  sharply  down; 
then  she  stared  up  at  him  as  before.  Among  the  German 
mothers  and  wives  the  tiny  clouds  of  breath  were  coming 
still  more  unsteadily  now,  and  I  could  hear  some  of  them 
sobbing.  Again  my  cousin  bowed  her  head. 

He  finished  and  began  to  pray  to  "the  great  all-seeing 
God"  for  aid  against  the  Russians  and  the  French  and 
English.  When  the  prayer  was  over,  they  began  to  sing 
a  hymn  which  since  the  outbreak  of  the  war  had  been 
sent  from  Berlin  to  churches  throughout  the  entire  land 
to  be  used  in  such  services.  "What  God  does  is  well 
done,"  was  the  refrain. 

At  last  it  was  over.  We  left  the  church  and  on  the 
village  commons  outside  we  gathered  on  the  muddy 
ground  around  the  granite  monument.  There  on  a  cop 
per  plate  were  the  names  of  men  killed  in  the  Franco- 
Prussian  war.  The  name  of  Max  Sonfeldt  had  been 
added  to  the  list.  The  thin  old  man  with  the  white  mus 
tache,  who  had  fought  in  1870,  came  forward  and  spoke 


BLIND  261 

to  the  people.  And  then  the  men  took  off  their  hats  and 
stood  with  bare  heads  in  the  cold  wind.  All  faces  turned 
to  Dorothy,  as  the  big  iron  wreath  was  placed  in  her 
hands.  She  had  been  told  of  this  in  advance,  and  I 
could  feel  her  brace  herself.  Quickly  she  came  and 
placed  the  big  wreath  at  the  base  of  the  monument.  As 
she  stepped  back  she  swayed  a  little.  I  drew  quickly 
near  her  in  the  crowd,  but  by  a  slight  motion  she  kept  me 
away.  She  had  vowed  she  would  go  through  with  this 
exactly  as  his  parents  wished. 

"He  would  want  me  to,"  she  had  said. 

Now  they  were  marching  off  to  the  grave.  We  fol 
lowed  them;  but  looking  back  during  a  pause  in  the 
slow  march,  I  saw  on  the  empty  commons  only  that 
granite  monument,  with  the  brazen  eagle  on  top  glaring 
down  voraciously  upon  the  names  on  the  copper  plate — 
like  some  savage  idol  of  long  ago. 

When  the  burial  was  over,  after  a  brief  sobbing  good 
bye  from  the  stout  old  woman  in  black,  Dorothy  was 
given  back  to  us,  and  we  took  her  to  the  train.  What  a 
relief  to  be  alone.  At  first  she  sat  by  the  window  staring 
out  at  the  windswept  trees — but  racking  my  brains  for 
some  way  of  relaxing  the  intensity  in  her  eyes,  I  remem 
bered  a  letter  from  Aunt  Amelia  which  had  come  the 
day  before.  I  laid  it  upon  Dorothy's  lap.  In  a  few 
moments  she  noticed  it  there.  She  began  to  read — and 
read  it  through.  She  read  it  through  a  number  of  times. 

In  Berlin  the  next  day,  at  our  embassy  I  had  trouble 
in  getting  her  passport.  We  had  planned  to  go  through 
England,  and  she  was  a  German  citizen  now.  At  last 
the  trouble  was  arranged.  We  left  Steve  to  go  back  to 
his  hospital  and  set  out  on  our  journey  home. 

On  the  voyage  back  across  the  Atlantic  she  kept  to 
her  cabin  most  of  the  time.  There  was  little  I  could  do 
for  her.  And  as  I  tramped  the  decks  alone  I  grimly  tried 
to  clear  my  thoughts,  get  some  perspective  on  it  all.  But 


262  BLIND 

mine  was  gloomy  thinking.  The  thought  of  her  disaster 
was  ever  there  before  me;  and  the  memories  arising  out 
of  my  year  in  Germany  kept  piling  up  and  gathering 
into  one  impression — of  an  overpowering  force,  precise 
and  systematic,  rigid,  hard,  relentless.  How  long  could 
humanity  stand  the  strain?  I  thought  of  how  Max 
before  his  death  had  begun  to  rebel  against  it  all.  I 
thought  of  the  dramatic  critic  and  the  lean  workman 
on  the  train,  and  of  that  chap  on  the  hospital  bed  who 
had  shaken  his  fist  at  the  priest.  I  remembered  the 
Galician  peasant  who  had  begged  for  his  old  boots — and 
I  wondered  if  he  had  found  his  cows.  In  those  wide 
regions  of  despair,  what  bitter  feelings  must  be  brew 
ing!  Or  had  all  power  of  revolt  been  crushed  out  of 
their  hearts  and  minds?  Was  the  thing  too  prodigious 
for  any  rebellion?  Were  men  to  become  mere  fatalists, 
slaves  ? 

The  thing  kept  spreading,  spreading.  Would  America 
come  in?  The  ocean,  dark  and  empty,  seemed  to  me  to 
answer,  "No."  But  I  began  to  feel  that  we  must.  There 
was  nothing  else  for  us  to  do. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

1. 

"LARRY,"  said  Aunt  Amelia,  in  a  voice  stern  with 
anxiety,  "I'm  afraid  that  it  is  going  to  be  very  hard  for 
Dorothy  here." 

We  had  been  home  but  a  few  hours.  Dorothy  had 
gone  to  bed.  Her  mother  had  been  with  her  but  had 
now  come  down  to  me,  and  in  response  to  her  searching 
questions  I  had  told  her  all  I  knew — from  my  talks 
with  Dorothy  in  Berlin  through  to  the  village  funeral. 
When  I  spoke  of  how  they  had  made  her  place  that  iron 
wreath  on  the  monument,  I  saw  my  aunt's  face  grow 
harsh  with  pain;  and  suddenly  as  I  looked  at  her  then  I 
realized  that  she  was  an  old  woman,  past  her  seventieth 
year.  Her  head  bobbed  nervously  at  times.  But  there 
was  something  indomitable  in  the  expression  on  her 
face,  and  in  her  questions  a  poignant  tone  that  made  me 
feel  how  she  had  gathered  her  energies  for  this  supreme 
struggle  of  her  life.  Emersed  in  the  war  in  the  last  year, 
my  thinking  had  grown  impersonal;  but  I  was  back  in 
the  family  now,  with  its  small  deep  intimate  life,  and 
I  began  to  realize  what  a  struggle  this  would  be.  Our 
country  drawn  inexorably  into  the  Great  War's  bitter 
ness,  the  people  here  growing  tense  and  strained — and 
Dorothy  the  wife  of  a  German,  loyal  to  his  memory.  The 
facts  were  grim. 

My  aunt's  low  voice  broke  in  on  my  thinking : 

"Did  she  love  him?" 

"Yes  and  no.  I  think  it  was  more  pity  than  love." 
And  I  went  on  to  give  details.  "She  mothered  him,"  I 
ended,  Dorothy's  mother  frowned  and  said, 

263 


264  BLIND 

"That  feeling  can  go  very  deep." 

The  words  sent  my  thoughts  leaping  back  to  the  years 
when  we  had  been  children  here — and  then  ahead  into 
Dorothy's  future.  How  was  it  going  to  be  in  this  house  ? 

"But  think  what  kind  of  a  girl  she  has  been !"  Quickly 
I  ran  back  over  her  life — her  buoyancy,  impulsiveness, 
warm  interests,  vitality.  As  I  talked  I  must  have  grown 
intense.  I  caught  her  mother  watching  me  with  a  curious 
gleam  in  her  eyes. 

"Larry,  I'm  counting  on  you,"  she  said.  "What  Doro 
thy  needs  is  a  chance  to  forget — and  I  mean  that  she 
shall  have  it.  But  it  will  not  be  easy.  For  very  soon  she 
is  going  to  feel  that  half  at  least  of  her  old  friends  and 
the  greater  part  of  her  family  already  look  on  her  as  a 
disgrace,  a  blot  upon  the  family  name — because  she 
married  a  German." 

"Even  now  that  he's  dead  ?"  I  asked.  Again  her  voice 
jvas  sharp  and  strained. 

"You  have  no  conception  of  how  they  feel!  Wait 
till  you  talk  with  them!"  she  said.  "It  began  with  the 
Lusitania !"  She  broke  off.  Her  head  was  bobbing.  She 
steadied  herself  and  looked  at  me:  "How  do  you  feel, 
Larry?  Do  you  think  this  country  should  enter  the  war?" 

I  hesitated,  watching  her.  I  recalled  her  words,  "I'm 
counting  on  you." 

"Yes,"  I  said.   She  flinched  a  little : 

"What  are  your  reasons?" 

As  I  tried  to  explain,  I  could  feel  her  mind  on  Dorothy 
still,  as  though  at  everything  I  said  her  forebodings  grew 
more  clear. 

"Still  I  am  against  it,"  she  said  steadily  at  the  end. 
"The  Lusitania — Belgium — Serbia — I  know  all  that. 
I've  heard  so  much — month  by  month — while  her  letters 
gave  me  the  other  side.  But  I  can't  believe  they  will  go 
on.  I  think  of  those  Germans  I  knew  so  well  back  in 
Wisconsin — long  ago." 


BLIND  265 

"But  they  were  revolutionists — driven  out  by  the  same 
autocracy  that  is  ruling  Prussia  today,"  I  said.  I  saw 
her  hands  clinch  tight  in  her  lap.  Her  face  was  pale. 

"Oh  Larry,"  she  said  softly,  "I'm  bitter — bitter 
against  them  now!  .  .  .  But  how  can  you  be  sure  their 
people  won't  rise  ?  Is  bitterness  the  only  way  ?  I've  been 
re-reading  Lincoln's  life." 

"He  went  to  war,"  I  said  gently. 

"Yes — and  we  may  again."  Her  look  went  back  half 
a  century.  "The  flags  may  have  to  come  out,"  she  said. 
"But  they're  terrible  flags." 

There  was  a  pause,  and  then  she  asked, 

"Have  you  told  Dorothy  how  you  feel  ?" 

"No " 

"Please  don't.  Wait  till  you  have  been  here  awhile. 
I'm  counting  on  you,  Larry,  to  help  me  give  her  that 
chance  to  forget." 


2. 

The  next  night  in  my  father's  house  in  town  I  was 
made  to  feel  how  hard  it  would  be.  With  Dad  himself 
this  was  not  so.  He  said  he  was  sorry  for  Dorothy  and 
then  went  on  to  speak  of  the  war. 

"The  plain  fact  of  the  matter  is,"  he  said,  "that  we 
are  being  kicked  in  the  face — have  been  for  the  last 
two  years.  And  as  soon  as  we  get  a  President  who'll 
open  the  nation's  eyes  to  that  fact,  we  are  going  in  to 
finish  this  war — finish  it  good  and  plenty.  The  only 
thing  to  worry  about  is  whether  or  not  we'll  be  in  time." 
With  keen  interest  he  began  to  ask  me  questions  as  to. 
Germany's  strength.  I  was  surprised  at  the  knowledge 
he  showed  of  the  making  of  shells.  "I'm  making  'em 
now  at  the  mills,"  he  explained. 

But  we  were  interrupted  there  by  Aunt  Fanny  and 
her  daughter,  Louise;  and  at  once  the  atmosphere  grew 
tense  with  the  spirit  of  inquisition.  I  could  feel  them 


266  BLIND 

both  impatient  to  get  through  all  talk  of  such  tiresome 
things  as  food  supplies,  shells,  petrol,  guns,  and  come 
to  the  question  of  Dorothy,  who  had  disgraced  the 
family  name.  But  I  parried  their  questions  for  awhile. 
I  wanted  to  get  their  view  of  all  this. 

Louise  was  a  tall  pretty  blonde  with  rather  irregular 
features  but  her  mother's  violet  eyes.  Nearly  twenty- 
three  years  had  passed  since  the  night  when  she  had 
been  brought  into  the  world  by  plain  Steve,  "the  stable 
boy."  But  there  had  been  nothing  plain  since  then.  A 
small  fortune  had  been  spent  on  her  dress,  her  health, 
her  complexion,  her  "breeding,"  her  "simplicity."  She 
had  "come  out"  the  year  before.  But  how  different  from 
the  debutantes  with  whom  I  had  danced  ten  years  ago! 
For  Louise  like  her  mother  was  "in  the  war"  and  could 
talk  or  think  of  nothing  else.  Enthusiastic  workers  for 
various  ultra- fashionable  pro-Ally  organizations,  they 
had  taken  the  war  ardently  into  their  small  glittering 
world  and  there  had  made  it  glitter,  too.  War  was  the 
fashion.  War  was  a  pageant,  a  thing  of  romance,  of 
titles,  decorations,  uniforms  of  many  kinds  and  national 
costumes  for  bazaars.  What  had  they  to  do  with  the 
poor  dirty  devils  I  had  seen  in  the  mud  of  the  trenches, 
or  gasping  their  lives  away  on  rough  cots?  What  did 
these  women  really  know  ?  They  loved  to  hear  of  atroci 
ties,  if  committed  by  "the  Bodies" ;  but  when  in  reaction 
against  their  talk  I  started  in  to  tell  them  of  the  Galician 
peasant  whose  feet  had  been  frozen  and  cut  off,  Aunt 
Fanny  interrupted. 

"I  hope  you  are  not  planning  to  publish  such  stories, 
Larry,"  she  said  .  "They  may  do  a  great  deal  of  harm — 
rouse  sympathy  for  the  German  side.  It's  perfectly 
senseless  to  attempt  to  make  any  distinction  whatever 
between  the  German  Government  and  the  German 
people,"  she  went  on  decisively.  "It's  the  German  people 


BLIND  26? 

— every  single  one  of  them — who  are  killing  those  poor 
boys  in  France!" 

"For  my  part,"  cried  young  Louise,  "I'll  never  speak 
to  a  German  again!  I  wish  they  were  all  wiped  off  the 
earth — every  man  and  woman  and  child!"  I  said  I  did 
•not  feel  that  way.  "Why  not?"  Louise  demanded.  Then 
they  tried  to  make  me  confirm  the  hideous  things  they 
knew  to  be  true  about  the  people  in  Germany.  And  when 
in  my  answers  I  refused  fully  to  satisfy  their  demands, 
and  in  my  obstinate  mood  that  night  I  even  went  on  to 
mention  all  the  good  points  I  could  think  of  in  the 
German  nation,  I  could  see  them  give  me  up.  Obviously 
I  was  a  "pro-German" — another  disgrace  to  the  family 
name. 

They  were  coming  now  to  Dorothy. 

"I'm  afraid,"  said  Aunt  Fanny  gently,  "that  you  have 
let  your  sympathies  be  influenced  by  Dorothy's  trouble 
• — and  her  views." 

I  pulled  myself  together  then.  I  remembered  what 
Dorothy's  mother  had  said.  How  to  make  these  women 
leave  her  alone? 

"Oh  Dorothy,"  I  said  quietly,  "is  bitter  enough  against 
Germany  now."  I  could  see  they  did  not  believe  me. 

"In  what  way?"  inquired  Louise.  "Does  she  feel 
that  we  should  go  into  the  war?" 

"No — she  hates  the  thought  of  war.  She's  against 
it  all." 

"I  see,"  said  Louise,  in  a  tone  which  said,  "Pro- 
German." 

"What  is  she  going  to  do  ?"  from  Aunt  Fanny. 

"Stay  with  her  mother  at  Seven  Pines — and  try  to 
forget.  And  if  she's  only  left  alone " 

"Where  are  you  going  to  stay,  Larry  dear?"  my 
young  half-sister  asked  me. 

"At  Seven  Pines." 


268  BLIND 

"I  see,"  she  said.  And  what  she  saw  was  Dorothy 
helping  me  write  such  German  lies  as  would  serve  the 
infamous  aims  of  "the  Bodies." 

Her  brother  came  in,  and  for  a  few  moments  there 
was  a  truce  in  the  attack.  This  youth  was  even  more 
intense,  but  his  talk  ran  on  practical  lines.  He  was  twenty- 
years  old,  and  small  and  hard,  with  close-cut  hair  thick 
and  black,  and  a  little  black  mustache.  He  had  left  Har 
vard  the  June  before,  had  gone  to  Plattsburg  to  harden 
up,  and  was  drilling  now  two  nights  a  week;  he  was 
working  long  hours  in  Dad's  mills,  and  his  talk  was  all 
of  guns  and  shells.  In  his  keen  hungry  Yankee  way  he 
was  "cramming"  for  the  fight.  "I'm  headed  for  the 
artillery."  With  him  the  war  was  no  mere  fashion  but 
as  real  as  mud  and  steel,  and  in  comparison  with  the 
women  there  was  a  ring  of  honest  thinking  on  his  part 
that  made  me  drop  my  obstinate  pose  and  come  out  with 
my  real  attitude — which  was  that  the  German  people,  in 
spite  of  all  their  many  good  points,  had  got  themselves 
into  a  state  where  they  needed  a  licking  and  needed  it 
bad,  and  that  it  was  very  plainly  up  to  our  country  to  go 
in.  This  cleared  the  atmosphere  a  bit,  and  from  my  new 
vantage  point  I  tried  again  to  do  what  I  could  for 
Dorothy.  Once  more  I  spoke  of  her  bitterness  against 
the  war  gang  in  Berlin.  Young  Carrington  frowned 
when  I  spoke  her  name. 

"How  about  Steve?"  he  inquired. 

"He  feels  about  as  I  do,  I  guess." 

"Then  why  does  he  stay  there?" 

"Would  you  be  in  favor  of  cutting  off  our  Red  Cross 
work  in  Germany?" 

"You  bet  I  would!" 

"Well,  I  guess  you're  right.  We'll  come  to  that  in  a 
few  months  more " 

"Months!"  he  snorted. 


BLIND  269 

"And  Steve  will  come  home."  There  was  a  strained 
little  silence. 

''How  about  the  chap  she  eloped  with!"  Carrington 
asked  abruptly.  I  waited  a  moment. 

"He's  dead,"  I  said. 

"Yes,  thank  God.  Did  you  see  much  of  him?" 


"And  was  he  against  the  war  gang,  too?" 

"Yes."   He  looked  at  me  sharply. 

"How  do  you  mean?"  I  tried  to  explain  but  he  cut 
me  short  :  "I  see.  You  mean  he  was  a  pacifist.  Then  why 
the  gas?" 

I  tried  to  explain  that,  too  —  and  to  my  surprise  he 
supported  me  there. 

"That's  all  right  enough,"  he  said.  "This  talk  of  going 
easy  in  war  and  being  nice  and  ladylike  is  all  piffle,"  he 
declared.  "Let  'em  be  as  rough  as  they  like.  It'll  make 
us  rougher  later  on.  But  what  makes  me  boil  a  bit  is 
for  a  chap  to  let  loose  gas  and  pacifist  talk  at  the  same 
time!  Where's  Dorothy?" 

"At  home  with  her  mother." 

"I  hope  to  God  she  stays  there!1' 

"She  will,"  I  said  intensely.  "And  her  mother  wants 
her  left  alone."  I  glanced  at  the  women  as  I  spoke. 

"Well,  I  won't  bother  her,"  Carrington  said.  And 
then  he  and  Dad  took  me  off  to  smoke  and  question  me 
farther  on  Germany's  strength. 

I  stayed  over  night,  and  the  next  day  my  young  half 
brother  took  me  downtown  to  the  great  American  bank 
ing  firm  which  was  buying  munitions  for  England  and 
France.  As  we  entered  the  crowded  lobby  I  stopped  for 
a  moment  to  look  about.  At  once  a  man  in  a  derby  hat 
touched  me  on  the  shoulder  and  asked  whom  it  was  I 
wanted  to  see.  Carrington  promptly  gave  a  name;  and 
as  we  turned  to  the  elevator,  "Detectives  all  over  the 


270  BLIND 

place,"  he  said.  "Taking  no  chances."  Upstairs  he  had 
to  see  several  men  about  a  shrapnel  contract;  and  inter 
ested  at  once  to  learn  that  I  had  been  in  Germany,  these 
keen  youngsters  fired  questions  and  in  return  they 
answered  mine.  They  spoke  of  the  "spirit"  in  their  office 
and  the  wonderful  system  to  eliminate  profiteering.  Ten 
per  cent  and  nothing  more. 

"Seems  sometimes,"  said  one  of  them  "as  if  every 
crook  and  shyster  on  the  face  of  the  planet  were  trying 
to  get  in  his  dirty  work  here.  Nothing  doing.  Ten  per 
cent,  and  a  rigid  inspection  of  the  stuff.  There's  plenty 
of  'phoney  stuff,  God  knows — but  we  have  nothing  to  do 
with  that.  It's  all  being  bought  at  enormous  prices  by 
the  Russians  and  the  Wops.  England  and  France  are 
buying  through  us,  and  our  chiefs  have  let  the  word 
come  down  that  there's  to  be  no  side  money  for  any 
little  mother's  son  in  this  whole  place,  from  the  roof  to 
the  cellar.  We  get  tips  on  contracts  which  if  used  on 
the  market  would  net  each  one  of  us  thousands.  See? 
But  none  of  that.  Not  a  dollar.  This  thing  is  rigid  as 
the  church.  Whole  war  depends  on  it.  That  sort  of 
talk." 

Carrington  and  he  were  drilling  in  the  same  armory  at 
night;  and  they  spoke  of  the  propaganda  of  the  League 
to  which  they  belonged.  Listening  I  got  an  idea  of 
small  groups  springing  up  in  the  East  and  even  scattered 
through  the  West.  But  as  I  read  the  papers  and  talked 
with  various  friends  of  mine,  I  was  made  to  feel  that 
the  main  tides  of  sentiment  in  the  country  were  still 
against  going  into  the  war.  In  coming  home,  I  had 
dropped  out.  This  was  both  a  disappointment  and  a  deep 
relief  to  me.  Dorothy  would  have  more  time. 


3. 

As  I  look  back  now  on  the  months  that  followed,  I 
think  I  can  see  how  she  would  have  recovered,  if  her 


BLIND  271 

mother  and  I  had  been  able  to  give  her  that  chance  to 
forget.  Too  battered  and  dulled  and  tired  at  first  to  feel 
anything  intensely,  she  seemed  to  settle  with  relief  into 
this  familiar  home ;  and  our  anxiety  dropped  away.  But 
as  time  wore  on,  the  memories  of  the  horrors  she'd  seen 
came  back  to  her;  and  she  grew  restless,  nerves  on  edge. 
In  an  instant  without  warning  at  some  mention  of  the 
war,  she  would  bite  her  lips,  the  tears  would  come  and 
she  would  make  quickly  for  her  room.  Her  mother  would 
find  her  on  the  bed  and  would  try  to  soothe  and  comfort 
her,  but  she  could  not  bridge  the  gap  between.  It  was 
wide  as  the  ocean  we  had  crossed. 

"Oh  mother,  mother — you  don't  know!" 

Her  mother  turned  to  me  for  help.  Again  and  again 
for  hours  together  Dorothy  would  go  over  with  me  all 
those  German  memories;  and  feeling  her  warm  loyalties 
for  the  man  who  was  dead  and  her  desperate  gropings 
for  something  strong  and  real  and  true  to  hold  to  in  her 
darkness,  I  was  drawn  to  her  as  never  before— not  even 
in  the  days  in  Berlin.  There  was  nothing  "pro-German" 
about  her  now — for  remembering  what  Max  had  said, 
at  times  she  talked  so  bitterly  of  "the  drill-masters"  in 
Berlin,  that  even  the  bitterest  anti-German  would  have 
been  satisfied  had  he  heard. 

But  this  point  of  view  was  quickly  changed  when 
Dorothy  was  confronted  by  the  attitude  of  Aunt  Fanny, 
Louise  and  other  relatives  and  friends.  And  this  we 
could  not  keep  from  her  long,  for  in  her  overwrought 
condition  she  insisted  on  seeing  them. 

"I  want  to  know  how  they  feel,"  she  exclaimed,  "and 
what  can  still  be  done  over  here  to  keep  this  country  out 
of  the  war  and  help  bring  it  to  an  end!  If  there's  any 
thing  I  stand  for  now,  it  is  what  Max  believed  in!" 

With  this  loyalty,  in  her  restless  mood,  she  saw  her 
friends  and  relations,  and  she  read  the  papers  every  day. 
She  found  a  readiness  to  believe  anything  horrible  of 


272  BLIND 

"the  Boches."  The  German  people  one  and  all  were 
either  grotesque  imbeciles  or  fiends  incarnate.  To  this 
attitude  she  reacted  by  passionately  defending  them. 

"The  German  people  are  no  worse  than  any  others!" 
she  declared.  "And  if  such  lies  are  being  believed,  it  is 
our  duty  to  tell  the  truth — just  what  we  really  saw  over 
there!" 

Apparently  forgetting  the  quarrels  we  had  had  before, 
she  seemed  to  take  it  for  granted  that  I  was  for  neutrality 
still.  And  this  made  it  hard,  for  she  counted  on  me. 
"You  can  reach  millions  with  the  truth!"  To  her  this 
truth  was  the  tragic  contrast  between  the  German  Gov 
ernment  and  the  blind  driven  people.  So  far  I  was  ready 
to  agree,  but  her  next  step  I  could  not  take. 

"If  America  goes  in,"  she  said,  "it  will  only  prolong 
the  fighting  and  keep  in  power  the  very  men  in  each 
country  who  are  to  blame  for  it  all!  And  the  hating, 
hating,  hating  will  start  up  all  over  again!  The  pec  pie 
are  getting  sick  of  it  now,  and  if  we  only  leave  them 
alone  they'll  force  their  governments  to  make  peace !" 

"But  any  peace  they  can  make  now  will  mean  that 
Germany  wins,"  I  said. 

"Let  them!  What  harm  can  it  do ?"  she  cried.  "Those 
brutal  idiots  in  Berlin  are  too  stupid  and  blind  to  keep 
their  power !  Their  own  people  will  turn  them  out !  As 
soon  as  their  men  get  home  from  the  army  they'll  make 
a  government  of  their  own !" 

"I  don't  believe  they  will,  my  dear — not  if  Germany 
wins,"  I  said.  But  in  vain  I  tried  to  make  her  listen  to 
my  point  of  view.  I  can  remember  clearly  still  the 
desperate  tortured  look  in  her  eyes,  as  dropping  all 
efforts  to  argue  she  pleaded  with  me  in  intimate  fashion, 
reminding  me  of  the  nights  long  ago  when  she  had  come 
down  from  college  and  gone  about  with  me  in  New 
York,  and  I  had  given  her  my  dreams  of  a  brotherhood 
world  wide. 

"Oh  Larry,  to  be  like  that  again !" 


BLIND  273 

It  grew  harder.  I  was  bitter  against  Aunt  Fanny  and 
the  rest  who  by  their  talk  were  forcing  Dorothy  into 
this  position,  while  I  by  the  inexorable  trend  of  events 
in  those  anxious  days  was  being  forced  the  other  way. 
Clashes  came  between  us  now,  and  this  only  made  her  the 
more  intense.  Her  mother  looked  on  but  could  do  little 
She  herself  could  feel  she  must  soon  take  sides — perhaps 
against  her  daughter — and  her  suffering  at  such  times 
of  premonition  made  me  try  again  to  do  my  best  to 
bridge  the  gap.  But  I  cared  for  Dorothy  in  those  days — 
in  a  way  that  made  me,  in  spite  of  myself,  argue  with 
her — and  we  fought.  Though  the  stories  I  was  pub 
lishing  made  me  a  "pro-German"  to  my  father's  family, 
to  Dorothy  I  was  a  traitor  to  the  whole  international 
cause. 

At  last  I  wrote  an  article  in  which  I  came  out  with  my 
belief  that  America  should  go  in.  I  showed  it  to 
Dorothy's  mother.  She  read  it  and  looked  up  at  me. 

"You're  sure  you  must?" 

"That's  how  I  feel." 

"Then  please  let  her  see  it  now.  It  will  be  worse  if 
you  publish  it  first." 

But  I  doubt  if  it  could  have  been  much  worse.  Thank 
God  I  have  forgotten  the  long  talk  with  her  that  night 
— her  outburst  against  "the  haters — here  and  there  and 
everywhere!" — and  the  way  she  begged  me  to  destroy 
"these  lies"  that  I  had  written.  At  the  end  she  grew 
suddenly  quiet  and  said, 

"If  you  feel  like  that,  please  don't  stay  here." 


4. 

I  went  to  Lucy's  the  next  day  and  was  with  her  for 
some  weeks,  finishing  my  articles.  But  the  thought  of 
my  cousin  tormented  me  still.  Lucy  often  went  over 
there  and  came  back  and  told  me  how  one  by  one  all 
Dorothy's  friends  were  dropping  away. 

"And  it  is  worse  than  that,"   she   said.      "For  her 


274  BLIND 

mother's  friends  keep  coming  still — and  they  are  getting 
the  war  point  of  view.  They  make  it  a  matter  of  prin 
ciple — and  with  Aunt  Amelia  you  know  what  that 
means.  I  saw  a  look  on  her  face  last  night  that  will 
haunt  me  to  my  dying  day!  She's  struggling  with  her 
conscience  so,  and.  her  old  memories  of  the  West  in  the 
days  of  the  Civil  War — and  trying  so  desperately  now 
to  be  honest  and  clear  in  her  thinking.  'Lucy,'  she  told 
me,  almost  with  a  groan,  'it's  like  being  Abraham,  my 
dear — except  that  my  Isaac  is  a  girl,  who  needs  me  more 
than  ever  before  since  she  was  my  baby'." 

"She  is  counting  on  Steve,"  my  sister  went  on. 
"Dorothy  has  talked  so  much  about  his  calm  neutrality, 
that  I  dread  his  coming  home!" 

"When  is  he  due?" 

"Next  month,  I  think." 

Steve's  home-coming  was  delayed;  but  meanwhile 
another  member  of  the  family  appeared,  to  drive  my 
aunt  a  little  farther  on  the  path  she  dreaded  so — though 
his  aim  was  just  the  opposite.  In  March  my  cousin  Ed 
arrived  from  his  ranch  in  Nebraska.  Strong  as  a  bull, 
with  heavy  features  and  clear  stolid  practical  eyes,  he  did 
not  look  like  one  easy  to  change.  I  remember  the  night 
when  with  his  mother  he  came  over  to  dine  with  Lucy 
and  me. 

"This  country  will  never  get  into  this  fight,"  he 
declared  decisively.  "The  whole  West  is  dead  against  it. 
The  farmers  are  more  prosperous  than  they've  ever  been 
before — buying  autos,  and  not  Fords  at  that.  And  the 
patriotic  yowls  of  these  wealthy  Wall  Street  leagues  only 
make  us  more  set  in  our  minds.  In  order  to  pile  up 
profits  for  them,  we  don't  propose  to  lose  billions  of 
dollars  and  maybe  millions  of  our  boys  in  a  fight  we  have 
nothing  to  do  with.  There  "are  so  many  pros  and  cons 
to  this  war.  There  are  so  many  foreigners  out  our  way, 
and  from  them  we  hear  both  sides — we  hear  it  till  we're 


BLIND  275 

sick  of  it!  To  us  it's  all  a  tangle,  a  rotten  diplomatic 
snarl!  We  can  thank  God  we  are  out  of  it — and  we 
propose  to  stay  out,  too!  We're  prosperous  and  con 
tented;  and  there's  not  a  chance  on  God's  earth,  or  an 
argument,  that  can  bring  us  in !" 

"I  don't  agree  with  you,  Edward!"  said  his  mother 
sharply.  We  looked  at  her  in  surprise.  Her  lips  com 
pressed,  her  color  high,  she  spoke  in  a  stern  unnatural 
tone.  "If  it  does  grow  clear,  as  it  may,  that  this  war  is 
really  for  justice  and  liberty  all  over  the  earth,  the  West 
will  certainly  respond.  The  West  is  deep  in  its  real 
devotions — it  takes  time  to  'rouse  that  side.  But  if  it 
ever  is  aroused,  then  neither  its  prosperity  nor  any  such 
selfish  motive  as  that — nor  even  the  lives  of  its  dear  sons 
— will  keep  it  from  following  the  flag — as  it  has  always 
done  before !" 

He  looked  at  her  in  blank  dismay.  In  spite  of  his 
heaviness,  Ed  was  very  fond  of  his  mother.  Some 
inkling  of  the  trouble  ahead  came  into  his  thinking. 

"What  will  Dorothy  say  to  this?"  he  asked  in  a  low 
anxious  tone.  "If  we  ever  should  get  into  this " 

"Not  now !"  She  stopped  him  with  her  hand.  "I  won't 
face  that  till  I'm  sure,"  she  said.  "It  may  still  be  that 
you  are  right.  But  I  cannot  and  will  not  sit  still,"  she 
ended,  with  another  stern  glance  at  her  son,  "and  allow 
the  West  to  be  described  simply  as  a  prosperous  land!" 

The  family  confab  soon  broke  up;  but  there  were 
other  family  talks,  in  ours  and  countless  other  homes 
throughout  the  land  in  those  groping  days;  and  the 
balance  swung  this  way  and  that.  Steve  came  back  late 
in  the  spring;  and  at  once,  as  I  had  been  before,  he 
became  the  target  for  questions  from  the  family.  Tommy 
had  come  home  from  school.  Huskier,  harder,  tougher, 
it  seemed  as  though  the  boy  had  grown  a  foot  in  the  year 
since  I'd  seen  him  last.  His  left  arm  was  in  a  sling. 
"Hockey,"  said  Tommy  briefly.  With  his  big  homely 


276  BLIND 

freckled  face  all  aglow  with  eagerness  he  fired  questions 
at  his  Dad;  and  the  rest  of  us  did  the  same.  As  Steve 
quietly  tried  to  answer  us  all,  a  quizzical  look  was  in 
his  eyes;  but  then  with  a  grim  expression  he  said, 

"I  don't  like  the  Germans — never  did — but  no  one 
who  honestly  faces  the  facts  can  be  there  and  not  admire 
the  way  they're  making  their  resources  count.  It's  a 
damnable  miracle,  that's  what  it  is — damnable  because 
it's  wrong.  It's  all  so  clearly  for  the  sake  of  forcing  our 
whole  civilization  into  the  most  infernally  scientific 
systematic  comfortable  slavery  that  the  world  has  ever 
seen.  I  don't  believe  you  people  here  even  dream  of 
what  a  danger  there  is  that  we'll  be  driven  into  that — 
unless  America  does  her  share!" 

Three  little  personal  tragedies — or  rather,  their  begin 
nings — flashed  out  for  a  moment  then. 

"You  mean  we  ought  to  fight,  Dad?"  Tommy  asked, 
in  a  queer  tense  voice.  Steve  turned  with  a  start  and 
looked  at  him. 

"Yes,  son,  I  think  we  should,"  he  said. 

The  next  instant  I  saw  Lucy's  hand  close  like  a  vise  on 
Tommy's  arm. 

And  then  I  heard  Aunt  Amelia  ask, 

"Are  you  sure  of  that,  Steve — absolutely  sure?" 

She  had  risen — rigid,  quivering.  Steve  went  to  her 
and  took  her  hand. 

"Don't  you  want  me  to  go  home  with  you  now?  I 
want  to  see  Dorothy,"  he  said. 

"Thank  you,  Steve." 

He  took  her  home ;  and  when  he  came  back  to  us  that 
night,  he  said  quietly, 

"I  had  a  long  talk  with  them  both,  and  at  least  the 
suspense  is  over.  Dorothy  knows  that  her  mother  is  for 
our  going  into  the  war — and  she  knows  how  we  feel — 
and  she  admits  that  there  is  some  sense  in  our  point  of 


BLIND  277 

view — as  I  admit  there  is  in  hers.  As  soon  as  I  can, 
I've  promised  to  take  her  out  to  her  brother's  ranch. 
In  the  meantime  you'd  better  leave  her  to  me.  She's  a 
case  for  a  neurologist  now.  That's  what  these  so-called 
patriots  who  fight  their  battles  all  at  home  have  suc 
ceeded  in  doing  to  her,"  he  said. 


5  . 

So  in  millions  of  family  groups  the  discussions  went 
on  through  the  summer;  and  in  at  least  a  million 
homes  were  people  who  felt  as  Dorothy  did.  That 
is  what  the  people  of  France  and  England  will  never 
understand.  In  the  autumn  I  had  a  chance  to  see  the 
result  of  these  numberless  arguments.  For  long  before 
this  the  idea  for  a  play  dealing  with  Germany  in  the  war 
had  come  into  my  head ;  and  soon  the  old  play  fever  had 
me  once  more  in  its  grip.  I  tried  to  be  fair  to  the  Ger 
mans  still;  but  the  arrogant  tyranny  of  Berlin  kept 
crowding  into  all  my  scenes;  and  the  more  I  wrote  the 
deeper  grew  my  feeling  that,  if  Germany  won,  it  was 
goodbye  to  democracy  or  peace  or  progress  in  the  world 
for  many  generations  to  come.  Moreover,  in  rehearsal 
the  actors  got  out  of  control.  The  British  hero  insisted 
on  being  all  hero,  while  the  villain  from  Berlin  would 
be  nothing  but  double-dyed.  And  so,  watching  the 
crowded  houses  to  which  we  played  in  small  cities  and 
towns  was  like  feeling  the  pulse  of  the  country,  at  least 
in  the  East.  And  even  the  East  that  autumn  showed 
itself  still  balancing.  Though  the  villainous  Prussians 
were  properly  hissed,  even  by  the  gallery,  I  saw  many 
that  smiled  at  the  hisses  or  whispered  angrily  to  their 
friends ;  while  as  for  the  British  hero,  the  applause  was 
dangerously  light,  and  his  lines  were  even  greeted  at 
times  by  a  few  titters  or  even  a  laugh.  But  among  the 
well  dressed  New  Yorkers  who  came  to  our  play  on 


278  BLIND 

opening  night,  there  was  no  such  neutrality.  The  house 
went  wild  against  Berlin;  and  the  British  hero,  with  a 
French  and  Belgian  victim  upon  either  side  of  him, 
responded  to  such  curtain  calls  as  made  my  anxious 
manager  chuckle  and  clap  me  on  the  back. 

I  went  out  then  to  Seven  Pines.  Dorothy  had  already 
gone  west  and  was  slowly  getting  herself  in  hand;  but 
as  the  great  crisis  drew  steadily  closer,  her  mother's  wor 
ries  for  her  increased.  The  Christmas  gathering  that 
year  was  a  good  deal  of  a  mockery.  The  future  was 
dark,  unsettled,  confused.  Tommy  alone  was  in  high 
spirits.  He  told  how  some  of  the  boys  at  school  had 
already  formed  a  company.  His  mother  sharply  cut  him 
off.  I  could  see  her  watch  him  anxiously.  Aunt  Amelia, 
still  unbeaten,  with  a  plucky  attempt  at  her  old  smile, 
but  with  a  slight  tremor  in  her  voice,  said  at  the  end  of 
the  evening, 

"I  hope  that  when  next  Christmas  comes,  the  world 
will  be  happier,  my  dears." 

But  now  for  me  all  personal  feelings  were  lost  in  the 
deepening  national  strain.  As  the  messages  went  back 
and  forth  between  Washington  and  Berlin,  I  could  feel 
the  pulse  of  the  nation  beat  with  a  swifter  warmer  throb. 
I  saw  other  plays  like  mine  playing  to  crowded  houses. 
The  bookshop  counters  were  piled  high  with  war  books 
of  every  description.  The  newspapers  seemed  nothing 
but  head-lines.  Flags  appeared  in  front  of  some  houses; 
and  when  I  went  out  to  dine,  people  could  talk  of  noth 
ing  but  war.  Yet  still  there  were  forces  holding  us  back. 
I  went  to  many  crowded  halls  down  in  the  tenement 
sections  and  found  a  sea  of  passions  there.  Bitter  pro- 
Germans  spoke  their  contempt  for  the  many  German- 
Americans  "running  to  cover"  on  every  side;  Irishmen 
shouted  furious  orations  on  the  "British  tyrants";  Jews 
declaimed  against  the  Czar;  Socialists  of  every  race 


BLIND  279 

hung  doggedly  to  their  creed  of  the  past  and  thundered 
the  old  Marxian  phrases  into  the  on-rushing  storm.  It 
was  the  same  in  the  meetings  of  the  patriots  uptown. 
The  thinkers  were  being  forced  to  the  rear;  the  shouters 
had  the  platforms.  But  under  all  the  surface  where  these 
little  pigmies  stormed,  I  could  feel  the  tides  beneath 
steadily  forcing  us  into  the  conflict.  What  all  the  leagues 
engineered  from  New  York  had  failed  to  effect  with 
their  warnings,  the  President  of  the  United  States  was 
now  swiftly  bringing  about  by  an  appeal  to  the  old 
ideals  of  liberty  and  justice,  together  with  the  summons 
to  a  crusade  to  end  all  war  and  make  the  world  safe 
for  democracy.  This  perhaps  would  not  have  succeeded, 
had  not  the  Imperial  Government  hastened  the  process 
by  a  display  of  such  contempt  for  America,  such  blatant 
open  assurance  that  we  could  not  count  in  time,  that  the 
Yankee  righting  blood  was  roused. 

"To  hell  with  those  damned  Dutchmen!" 
This  summed  up  the  gist  of  it  for  many  exasperated 
men.  Even  Ed's  letters  from  the  West  showed  a  dis 
turbed  uncertainty  and  a  deepening  wrath  against  the 
Germans  for  "acting  like  such  pig-headed  fools."  Even 
the  people  out  his  way  were  getting  sick  of  it,  he  said. 
Every  day  it  grew  more  sure.  America  was  going  in. 
And  then  goodbye  to  the  morale  of  the  German  people, 
I  told  myself. 

With  this  hope  I  tried  to  allay  the  anxiety  of  my 
aunt.  She  had  fully  made  up  her  mind  to  the  war- 
but  how  would  it  be  with  Dorothy  ?  My  cousin  was  still 
with  her  brother  out  west,  but  even  the  West  was  chang 
ing  now;  and  we  saw  deeper  complications  ahead  if  the 
fighting  should  go  on  to  the  days  when  American  boys 
from  all  over  the  land  were  upon  the  firing  line.  When 
the  lists  of  killed  and  wounded  arrived,  how  would  they 
treat  "pro-Germans"  here?  Resolutely  my  brave  old 


280  BLIND 


Aunt  Amelia  put  such  fears  aside  and  held  grimly  to 
the  hope  that  the  war  would  come  to  an  early  close.  In 
this  hope  I  supported  her.  The  German  people  could 
never  hold  out.  By  autumn  we  should  see  the  end. 


6. 

But  the  vast  struggle  overseas,  ever  widening  and 
changing,  with  startling  new  developments,  now  gave  to 
little  men  like  me  another  of  its  mighty  jolts — brought 
me  up  with  a  jerk,  as  it  were,  upon  the  edge  of  a  preci 
pice  and  grimly  bade  me  look  again  into  the  strange 
years  ahead. 

I  was  lunching  at  my  club  one  day  when  suddenly  the 
word  went  'round  that  the  Russians  had  risen  against 
their  Czar.  In  a  moment  the  whole  room  was  a-buzz,  as 
eagerly  we  launched  upon  a  new  ocean  of  war-guessing. 
In  our  state  of  mind,  those  days,  determined  to  make  alt 
news  good,  we  were  soon  assuring  each  other  that  noth 
ing  better  could  have  been  imagined.  High  time  those 
chaps  got  rid  of  their  Czar  and  built  up  a  free  country 
like  our  own.  Moreover,  the  Czar  and  his  court  had 
been  pro-German  to  the  core.  This  revolt  was  led  by 
men  who  proposed  to  carry  the  war  straight  through  to 
a  finish;  in  Petrograd  a  strong  group  was  already  in  the 
saddle.  Yes,  decidedly  we  approved  of  this  Russian 
revolution!  It  cleared  the  issue  so  nicely  just  as  we 
were  coming  in.  For  the  dark  old  Russian  government 
had  been  an  embarrassing  ally.  .  .  .  But  at  crowded 
meetings  large  and  small  in  the  foreign  sections  of  New 
York,  I  was  given  an  impression  of  the  Slav  upheaval 
which  would  have  shocked  my  countrymen.  This  was 
no  mere  bourgeois  coup  d'etat  to  help  the  Allies  against 
Germany.  This  was  the  blow-off  of  the  lid ;  this  was 
to  be  a  rising  against  all  bourgeois  governments  in 
every  country  on  the  earth,  to  sweep  the  capitalists 
aside  and  bring  the  proletariat  of  the  world  into 


BLIND  281 

its  own!  Talk  like  this  I  heard  down  there;  and  dis 
count  it  though  I  did,  I  could  feel  that  the  Great  War 
had  changed.  Risen  to  a  climax  in  that  rigid  system  I 
had  seen  in  Germany,  now  it  was  apparently  about  to 
swing  to  the  other  extreme.  Old  memories  rose  up  in 
me  of  the  socialist  dream  for  mankind.  How  much  of 
it  was  possible?  How  much  was  possible  in  this  way — 
all  at  jump — through  violence? 

But  events  here  followed  thick  and  fast,  and  I  had  no 
time  for  Russia  now.  I  remember  taking  the  Presi 
dent's  big  war  speech  off  the  ticker  one  night.  That 
settled  it — we  were  in  at  last.  I  went  down  to  the 
crowded  streets  below.  People  from  the  theaters  were 
hurrying  as  usual  along  Forty-second  Street  to  catch  the 
suburban  trains.  I  heard  or  saw  few  signs  of  excite 
ment.  The  newspaper  vendors  along  the  way  shouted 
extras  into  their  faces,  and  snatching  the  papers  the 
crowds  hurried  by.  Suddenly  I  remembered  those  other 
crowds  on  the  Friedrichstrasse,  hurrying,  hurrying, 
hurrying,  each  intent  on  his  little  affairs,  while  the  old 
woman  had  flourished  her  papers  and  screamed,  "The 
Future!"  at  them.  The  future — what  would  it  be? 

I  turned  into  Park  Avenue,  walked  a  few  blocks  and 
then  stopped  short — for  through  the  open  window  of 
an  old-fashioned  red  brick  house  came  the  sound  of  a 
piano  and  voices  singing  a  marching  song  of  the  Civil 
War.  I  thought  of  Aunt  Amelia.  "The  flags  may  have 
to  come  put  again.  But  they're  terrible  flags."  In  front 
of  the  houses  down  the  street  they  hung  motionless  in 
the  still  night  air.  The  street  was  almost  empty.  Only 
a  dump  cart  passing  by. 

In  my  father's  home  I  found  the  family  gathered 
around  young  Carrington  and  two  of  his  friends,  with 
whom  he  was  discussing  the  merits  of  three  army  rifles 
which  were  passed  from  hand  to  hand.  His  face  was 
set  in  an  eager  scowl.  Young  Carrington  was  practical. 


282  BLIND 

His  thoughts  were  bent  on  how  to  "get  over"  just  as 
soon  as  possible.  On  account  of  his  previous  training  he 
felt  sure  of  getting  into  the  first  officers'  training  camp, 
and  he  had  a  hundred  things  to  attend  to.  When  his 
friends  were  gone  he  rapidly  unloaded  various  business 
details  on  Dad,  who  was  plainly  proud  of  his  son.  Then 
my  young  brother  turned  to  me. 

"How  about  you,  Larry?"  he  asked.  "What  are  you 
planning  ?" 

"I  haven't  decided." 

"How  old  are  you?" 

"Forty-two."    The  youngster  looked  at  me  critically. 

"You  might  have  a  chance,"  he  said.  "But  the  hell  of 
it  is  that  in  your  case  they  would  probably  keep  you 
on  this  side." 

"Oh,  I'm  not  so  sure  of  that,"  I  replied.  The  fact  was 
that  the  idea  of  enlisting  had  never  entered  my  head 
till  then.  But  this  night  was  rapidly  changing  things — 
and  besides,  I  was  decidedly  peeved  to  have  this  young 
ster  so  obviously  lay  me  on  the  shelf. 

"Once  you're  in,"  he  reminded  me,  "they've  got  you, 
and  you  lose  your  chance  of  making  any  choice  of  your 
own.  You'd  hate  to  get  stuck  at  a  desk  job  in  the  army 
over  here.  While  as  a  correspondent,"  he  added,  "you've 
got  a  name  and  you're  needed  in  France.  You  can  get 
right  across  and  see  the  whole  show." 

"I'm  getting  sick  of  seeing  things,"  I  retorted 
doggedly.  And  this  idea  of  enlisting  began  to  take  hold 
in  the  next  few  days.  At  my  club  I  found  that  scores 
of  my  friends  were  asking  the  same  question:  "How 
about  me?"  The  war  had  become  abruptly  a  personal 
matter  to  each  one.  Some  bored  me  with  their  pros  and 
cons.  Others  kept  their  thoughts  inside,  but  you  could 
see  it  in  their  eyes.  Quite  a  few  looked  veritably  tor 
tured.  With  me  it  did  not  get  that  far.  I  was  six-feet- 


BLIND  283 

two,  thin,  stoop-shouldered,  with  long  bony  wrists  and 
hands — and  when  I  tried  to  see  myself  dolled  up  as  a 
fighting  man,  my  sense  of  humor  entered  in.  Besides, 
what  I  did  seemed  so  unimportant.  All  my  life  I  had 
been  a  watcher;  and  there  were  such  big  things  happen 
ing  now,  events  following  one  another  pell  mell.  More 
and  more  I  had  a  sense  of  being  swept  along  on  the  tide. 
Let  my  own  little  future  take  care  of  itself. 

7. 

I  had  a  telephone  call  one  day  from  the  editor  of  my 
paper. 

"How  about  going  over  to  France  and  seeing  our  first 
preparations  there?'* 

"It  doesn't  appeal  to  me." 

"How  about  Russia?" 

"I'm  thinking  of  that." 

"Good.    Come  down  and  talk  it  over." 

"All  right — in  a  day  or  so." 

But  the  days  passed  and  I  did  not  go.  The  two  plans 
kept  pulling  opposite  ways — to  go  to  Russia  and  see  all 
that,  or  to  quit  my  writer's  job  and  get  into  the  army, 
lose  myself.  Already  quite  a  few  men  I  knew  were 
reading  army  manuals  and  cramming  up  on  how  to 
fight;  and  to  keep  that  path  still  open  I  joined  a  train 
ing  corps  in  town.  I  remember  the  first  drill  night  in 
a  big  shadowy  armory.  Several  thousand  would-be  offi 
cers  had  already  come  into  the  hall,  paid  five  dollars  and 
entered  their  names,  and  were  crowded  against  the  walls, 
some  with  serious  faces,  others  with  fixed  unnatural 
smiles,  while  a  few  score  officers  and  non-coms  from  the 
regular  army  shouted  out  orders. 

"All  those  men  who  drilled  last  week  go  down  to  that 
end  of  the  hall!" 

"Come  on,"  said  the  fellow  next  to  me,  an  angular 


284  BLIND 

alert  little  chap  who  had  just  remarked  that  this  was  his 
first  evening.  "Let's  take  a  chance  and  bluff  it  out! 
We'll  get  on  faster!" 

We  moved  down  to  the  end  of  the  hall,  where  amid 
quick  shouted  orders  many  platoons  were  being  formed. 
In  half  an  hour  the  whole  hall  was  a  mass  of  marching 
men.  And  to  the  sharp,  explosive,  "Right — left!"  of 
the  officers,  and  the  heavy  tramp  of  feet,  an  American 
army  was  being  born.  But  what  an  army !  As  my  squad 
went  by  a  huge  gun,  I  saw  two  officers  sitting  on  top 
and  surveying  us  with  quizzical  looks.  I  smiled  up  at 
them,  and  the  younger  man  smiled  back  in  a  way  which 
made  me  say  to  myself  in  disgust, 

"Fat  chance  I  have  of  getting  across.  I'll  get  in  and 
there  I'll  be — sidetracked  somewhere  in  a  camp — while 
over  in  France  the  fighting  ends,  and  in  Russia  the  whole 
radical  movement  of  the  world  will  be  settled  one  way  or 
the  other!  I'll  miss  that  too!" 

But  tramp,  tramp  all  over  the  hall.  I  was  in  the  spell 
of  it  again. 

I  remember  a  lovely  afternoon  out  on  Governor's 
Island.  The  big  bare  aviation  field  jutting  out  into  the 
harbor  was  dotted  with  small  groups  of  men  marching 
about  with  wooden  guns.  "Rest!"  cried  our  sergeant 
abruptly.  We  wiped  off  the  sweat  and  talked  for  a 
while.  There  were  sixteen  of  us,  mostly  clerks.  The 
wiry  little  man  on  my  right  turned  out  to  be  a  dentist. 

"This  is  the  biggest  thing  I've  seen,"  he  confided  earn 
estly,  "since  I  left  Peoria." 

On  my  left  was  a  stout  youth  with  a  good-natured 
freckled  face,  who  said, 

"I'm  out  here  because  of  the  boss.  He  told  the  whole 
office  this  morning  that  anyone  who'd  come  out  and 
drill  could  always  get  his  afternoons  off.  And  that's 
me,"  he  added  with  a  wink.  "Why  not?  It's  pleasant 
weather.  And  I  dunno  but  what  I'll  enlist.  Maybe  I 


BLIND  28£ 

will  and  maybe  I  won't.  But  say — ain't  we  a  peach  of 
an  army?" 

My  eyes  followed  his  out  over  the  field,  and  watching* 
those  awkward  little  squads  I  remembered  the  regular 
tides  of  men  I  had  seen  sweep  by  in  Germany.  How 
could  we  hope  to  get  ready  in  time?  As  the  sun  sank 
into  the  haze  of  the  west  we  heard  the  boom  of  the 
sunset  gun.  Then  a  bugle  call.  "Attention !"  The  word 
was  shouted  far  and  near.  And  a  moment  later  all  over 
the  field  those  several  hundred  pigmies  stood  rigid  as  so 
many  pegs — hats  off — while  in  the  distance  the  band 
played  the  national  anthem. 

"Gee!"  said  the  little  dentist.    "That  got  me!" 

It  was  only  a  few  days  later  that  my  editor  called  me 
up: 

"Look  here,  I'm  getting  tired  of  this.  When  are  yoti 
coming  down  to  talk?" 

I  went  to  see  him  late  that  night.  The  paper  was 
already  going  to  press.  He  came  out  in  his  shirt  sleeves, 
with  a  contented  scowl  on  his  face,  his  gray  hair  tumbled, 
pipe  in  his  teeth. 

"Come  on  into  my  den,"  he  said,  and  there  he  soon 
got  at  my  indecision.  "Don't  be  a  damn  fool,  Larry,*' 
he  urged.  "The  war  can't  last  long,  now  we're  in  it — 
their  whole  show  will  soon  break  down.  And  all  that 
you'll  get  out  of  it  will  be  a  health  cure  here  in  camp. 
You'll  have  thrown  away  your  one  big  chance — which  is 
to  go  to  Russia,  son.  You're  fitted  for  that,  it's  right 
in  your  line — you've  mixed  with  the  Reds  and  know 
their  game.  Go  over  and  get  under  the  skin  of  what 
they're  really  doing  there.  That's  what  we  all  want  to 
know.  What  are  they  up  to  ?  What  does  it  mean  ?  This 
thing  is  bigger  now  than  war.  If  in  Russia,  why  not 
somewhere  else?  God  only  knows  where  it'll  stop.  Come 
on,  now,  look  at  it  sensibly." 

That  week  a  long  letter  came  to  me  from  my  old 


286  BLIND 

friend  Oberookoff.  In  the  most  extravagant  terms  he 
described  the  glories  of  the  great  new  soul  of  Russia 
now — all  factions  uniting,  quarrels  ending,  gloom  and 
suspicion  and  despair  and  bitterness  all  swept  away  in 
a  dazzling  tide  of  hopes  and  dreams.  Russia — freedom 
— justice — brotherhood — a  queer  new  world.  How  much 
of  it  was  really  true? 

I  started  for  Russia  early  in  June. 

"Oh,  Larry,"  said  Aunt  Amelia,  with  a  shining  light 
in  her  eyes,  "what  a  tremendous  experience  you  are  going 
to  have,  my  dear!" 


CHAPTER  XV 

1. 

THE  Russian  Revolution,  that  sombre  vast  adventure, 
is  so  far  from  finished  still,  its  measureless  possibilities 
for  the  happiness  or  the  misery  of  all  humanity  so 
obscure,  that  I  can  get  no  large  clear  view.  With  some 
men  this  is  not  so.  They  feel  they  can  speak  with 
authority;  and  taking  one  side  or  the  other,  they  are 
quite  sure  about  it  all.  As  a  rule  they  have  never  been 
in  Russia,  but  this  does  not  hamper  them;  they  take 
all  the  bad  or  all  the  good  they  hear  of  the  Soviet 
Regime — the  rest  they  disdainfully  throw  aside,  and  so 
building  their  high  mountains,  they  look  down  with  clear 
superior  eyes.  But  each  of  us  has  his  own  mountain  to 
build ;  and  in  these  times  of  censorship,  of  passion,  preju 
dice  and  lies,  the  humbler  mountain  builders  have  not 
yet  raised  their  little  hills  high  enough  to  see  over  the 
trees.  So  at  least  it  has  been  with  me.  I  look  back  into 
Russia  and  I  see  a  dark  prodigious  tumult — with  blind 
ing  flashes,  dazzling  vistas — then  again  clouds.  What  is 
happening  there  ?  Why  did  not  these  "civilized  govern 
ments"  send  into  Russia  long  ago  hundreds  of  fair- 
minded  men  really  equipped  to  get  the  facts?  There 
are  so  many  things  I  want  to  know!  I  am  blind.  I  sit 
here  and  look  back.  I  have  but  a  chain  of  memories, 
impressions  of  a  foreigner  who  without  even  speaking 
the  language  plunged  into  that  stormy  land. 

But  dreaming  of  my  memories,  gradually  I  have 
grown  aware  of  the  presence  in  this  room  of  a  few  new 
figures,  men  and  women,  whom  I  met  in  the  Great  Revo 
lution.  Some  I  had  almost  forgotten.  Strange  how  close 

287 


288  BLIND 

they  seem  to  me  now,  as  with  those  other  monitors  they 
gather  around  me : 

"Brother— the  truth." 

I  will  do  the  best  I  can. 


2. 

Our  small  Norwegian  boat  was  packed  with  Russian 
Reds  returning  home,  and  I  struck  up  an  acquaintance 
with  a  fellow  in  the  steerage  who  had  come  from  a 
Nevada  mine.  Years  before  as  a  boy  he  had  escaped 
from  a  Siberian  prison,  crossed  the  Pacific,  found  work 
in  the  mines  and  had  been  pretty  much  all  over  the 
West.  He  spoke  a  broken  choppy  English.  Stunted  and 
tough,  he  was  almost  a  dwarf;  but  he  had  friendly 
twinkling  eyes,  and  the  soul  of  him  was  big  with 
dreams.  He  was  not  for  peace  with  Germany. 

"Fight  the  Kaiser — fight  like  hell — because  if  we 
don't,  and  Germany  wins,  he'll  march  right  in  with 
T.  N.  T. — and  our  whole  revolution  then  won't  be  worth 
a  God  damn  cent.  Understand?  We've  got  to  fight  till 
his  people  kick  him  off  his  throne  and  give  him  a  job  in 
the  subway,"  he  said.  "Then  give  all  kings  and  all  rich 
people  jobs  in  subways — understand? — at  good  fair 
wages.  Treat  'em  right — for  they  are  fellows  like  our 
selves — and  they  must  have  not  any  more,  not  any 
less — than  all  of  us.  If  they  work  they  can  vote — if  they 
don't  they  are  bums.  And  so  we  fellows  all  together — 
miners  too — will  make  a  new  world.  No  French  Revo 
lution — no  chopping  off  heads — it's  out  of  date.  We'll 
do  it  right-— we'll  get  together — plan  it  out — get  every 
thing  running.  No  more  wars,  no  diplomats,  no  people 
starving,  no  little  kids  dying,  no  more  strikes.  We 
won't  get  mad.  Whenever  we  do  we'll  quit  it.  'Now 
fellows  be  sensible,  get  together/  That  kind  of  talk. 
We'll  run  the  mines  and  railroads,  and  factories  and 
cities,  too — we'll  plan  it  out.  Slow  work — understand 


BLIND  28& 

— all  kinds  of  trouble.  But  by  God,  when  we  get 
through,"  he  ended  in  a  husky  tone,  "we'll  have  a  world 
free  from  one  end  to  the  other!" 

Months  later  when  I  met  him,  this  chap  was  gaunt 
and  worn /to  the  bone,  but  his  wide  jaws  were  clamped 
like  a  vise.  He  was  in  a  uniform  dirty  and  torn;  he  had 
fought  at  first  in  the  trenches,  and  later  as  the  chaos 
spread  he  had  gone  along  the  front,  speaking  to  crowds 
of  mutinous  soldiers,  urging  them  to  keep  up  the  fight. 
A  job  where  a  man  took  his  life  in  his  hands.  I  won 
der  if  he  is  living  now? 

As  our  ship  with  its  load  of  dreamers  sped  up  toward 
the  midnight  sun,  it  was  as  though  all  darkness  were 
being  left  behind  us.  Vividly  I  remember  one  night.  Just 
to  the  south  were  the  Faero  Islands,  black,  mountainous, 
rising  out  of  the  sea.  To  the  north  the  great  sun  sank 
out  of  sight  below  the  shining  horizon,  in  a  brief  hour  to 
rise  again.  There  was  not  a  breeze  to  ruffle  the  waters. 
The  gleaming  golden  ocean  took  on  iridescent  hues  that 
melted  into  those  in  the  sky,  until  there  was  no  dividing 
line  between  the  heavens  and  the  sea.  All  the  world  was 
bathed  in  color,  strange,  unreal,  a  mighty  dream.  In  the 
steerage,  a  small  group  of  men,  and  two  women  and  a 
child,  were  at  the  rail  staring  off  to  the  north.  In  low 
intense  voices  these  men  had  been  talking.  One  of  the 
women  stopped  them  now.  And  as  they  stared  in  silence 
at  that  golden  ocean,  there  seemed  to  be  a  promise  there 
of  some  distant  golden  age. 

But  the  dream  was  brief.  In  a  hard  garish  jumble 
come  the  memories  of  the  next  few  days,  as  on  crowded 
trains  we  went  far  up  to  the  head  of  the  Bothnian  Gulf, 
ferried  across  to  Tornea  and  so  came  to  the  Russian 
frontier.  A  fresh  new  glorious  land  of  the  free?  No,  a 
nation  sick  and  tired,  worn  with  its  heavy  heritage  of 
war  and  tyranny  behind.  My  first  impression  was  like 
that.  For  as  we  waited  for  our  train,  I  took  a  stroll 


290  BLIND 

along  the  tracks;  and  reaching  far  as  I  could  see  back 
into  the  forest  were  enormous  piles  of  boxes,  barrels, 
war  supplies,  machinery,  food.  They  were  sorely  needed 
in  Russia  now,  but  the  war  and  the  revolution  had 
broken  the  railroad  system  down.  I  heard  the  gay  music 
of  a  band,  and  looking  down  to  the  ferry  dock  I  saw  a 
small  group  of  Red  Cross  doctors  and  nurses  there. 
Another  boat  had  just  come  in;  and  in  a  few  minutes, 
up  the  slope  across  the  tracks  to  a  line  of  box  cars  in 
the  yard,  came  a  long  slow  procession  of  ghastly  figures, 
men  and  boys.  A  few  of  them  hobbled  along  by  them 
selves;  more  lay  on  stretchers,  waxen-faced,  mere  skele 
tons,  consumptives,  cripples.  They  were  from  German 
prison  camps,  had  been  exchanged  and  were  coming 
home,  many  to  die,  and  all  to  add  to  the  load  of  gloom, 
disease  and  despair  that  the  war  had  bequeathed  to  the 
revolution.  I  heard  one  of  them  gibber  as  though  insane. 
I  went  back  to  the  station  and  found  the  platform 
crowded  now.  Soldiers  and  trainmen  with  dull  faces  but 
intent  and  serious  eyes  were  listening  to  the  speeches 
shouted  upon  every  side  by  my  fellow  travelers  from 
New  York.  Certainly  they  had  lost  no  time  in  getting 
into  the  argument!  I  learned  that  a  railroad  strike  was 
just  about  to  be  called  on  this  line.  God  only  knew  when 
we  should  get  on.  But  this  was  nothing;  the  minds  of 
the  speakers  had  soared  tip  to  larger  spheres.  Land  fof 
the  peasants,  bread  for  the  workers,  peace  for  all!  So 
shouted  a  little  Bolshevik  who  had  come  over  in  the 
steerage,  while  a  large  angry  Jewess  who  had  come  in 
the  first  cabin  shook  her  Menshevik  fist  in  his  face, 
denouncing  him  as  a  German  spy  and  a  traitor  to  the 
socialist  cause.  Was  there  not  already  confusion  enough? 
The  only  chance  for  socialism  was  to  apply  it  with  com 
mon  sense  and  moderation,  she  declared.  The  gist  of 
these  speeches  I  managed  to  get  through  the  little  man 


BLIND  291 

from  Nevada.  I  followed  him  down  the  platform  to  a 
group  of  trainmen  there.  He  talked  to  them  rapidly, 
earnestly.  What  about  this  railroad  strike?  He  had  no 
doubt  that  they  were  in  the  right — but  why  not  let  this 
one  train  start?  Here  was  a  big  crowd  of  Reds  come  to 
help  in  the  revolution.  Let  them  get  on  to  Petrograd! 
And  there  up  the  track  were  two  hundred  poor  devils 
from  the  German  prison  camps,  who  would  die  if  left 
in  the  woods. 

"And  they  are  fellows  like  ourselves.  Give  them  a 
chance,  brothers.  Don't  leave  them  here  to  die  like 
dogs." 

His  words  began  to  have  effect.  Finally  it  was  voted 
that  the  train  should  be  allowed  to  start.  So,  with  our 
wheezing  old  locomotive  and  a  long  train  of  dirty  cars 
— half  of  them  filled  with  wrecks  of  the  war,  the  other 
half  with  pioneers  and  prophets  of  the  revolution — 
with  puffs  and  pants  and  screeches  of  wheels,  we  pulled 
out  into  the  yards,  past  those  acres  of  war  supplies,  and 
started  down  through  Finland  into  Holy  Russia. 

All  the  next  day  and  part  of  the  night  we  travelled  on 
with  many  stops,  and  about  one  in  the  morning  we  came 
into  Petrograd.  The  sun  had  not  yet  risen,  and  in  a  gray 
uncertain  light  we  came  out  of  the  long  low  dirty  station 
into  an  equally  dirty  square.  Here  was  a  row  of  small 
open  hacks,  all  in  a  state  of  dilapidation,  with  huge 
wooden  yokes  over  the  necks  of  the  wretched  little 
horses.  The  drivers  were  all  bundled  up  in  thick  wadded 
filthy  clothes;  like  their  horses,  they  looked  dead  with 
sleep.  And  in  my  tired  mood  that  night  the  whole  city 
seemed  oppressed  with  the  dirt  and  sin  of  generations. 
The  very  air  was  heavy  with  the  wood  smoke  from  the 
chimneys.  With  another  correspondent  I  got  into  a  little 
hack;  and  rattling  over  the  cobbled  streets  between  tall 
silent  tenements  we  kept  passing  shadowy  groups  of 


292  BLIND 

inen  and  women,  boys  and  girls,  who  walked  along  talk 
ing  in  that  strange  tongue,  their  loud  voices  beating 
against  the  walls. 

We  came  to  the  old  Hotel  de  France.  Grim  greeting 
from  the  proprietor.  The  waiters  and  porters  and  cham 
bermaids  had  gone  on  strike  that  day,  he  said.  Wearily 
lugging  our  bags  along  we  followed  him  up  broad  flights 
of  stairs  and  through  a  dark  smelly  labyrinth  of  long 
narrow  carpeted  halls.  In  the  room  allotted  to  me,  dirty 
water  stood  in  the  wash-bowl,  empty  bottles  lay  on  the 
floor,  and  the  bed  had  not  been  made.  On  the  tumbled 
sheets  lay  an  old  pink  corset.  Peevishly  I  threw  the 
thing  into  a  dusty  corner.  I  undressed  and  got  into  bed. 
Broad  daylight  now,  the  cold  gray  dawn.  All  Russia,  I 
decided,  was  like  the  morning  after.  As  I  drifted  into 
dreams,  the  bed  grew  larger,  larger. 

"This  bed  is  Russia,"  I  growled  to  myself.  "Millions 
of  people  have  slept  in  it,  millions  of  people  have  lived  in 
this  room.  And  the  dirty  little  chambermaid  has  swept 
everything  under  the  bed.  Nice  birthplace  for  a  clean 
new  world." 


3. 

On  hot  sultry  days  and  nights  I  wandered  down  the 
Nevsky  watching  its  tumultuous  life — its  ugly  rasping 
trolley  cars  bulging  with  humanity,  its  dense  street  traf 
fic  crowding,  crowding,  countless  little  open  cabs,  army 
trucks  and  ambulance  cars,  long  processions  of  peasant 
carts  piled  with  sheep,  hogs,  bags  of  grain,  mounted  Cos 
sacks  with  their  caps  stuck  jauntily  down  over  one  ear. 
On  either  side  this  teeming  way  were  slowly  moving 
throngs  of  people — the  dullness  of  civilian  clothes  relieved 
by  gaudy  uniforms  and  the  garb  of  Gypsy  women,  monks 
and  beggars,  Black  Sea  sailors,  Tartars,  Georgians,  many 
more — half  the  races  of  the  planet,  talking  a  harsh  babel 
of  tongues.  Soldiers  everywhere  in  the  throng  tramped 


BLIND  293 

along  with  slouching  gait,  a  few  saluting  officers,  more 
passing  with  derisive  grins.  No  limousines,  no  liveries, 
no  sparkle  or  dash  of  fashion  here.  Long  lines  of  people 
at  shop  doors,  waiting  for  a  chance  to  buy  a  little  sugar, 
bread,  tobacco.  Thinking  of  the  revolution  ?  Not  by  any 
manner  of  means.  People  scuttling  for  trains,  mothers 
with  children,  mischievous  boys,  and  prostitutes,  and 
gay  young  people,  chattering,  laughing,  crowded  by. 
Happy  people,  scowling  people,  worried,  peevish,  busy 
people — each  engrossed  in  his  own  affairs.  In  an  open 
cab  a  woman  passed  with  a  tiny  blue  coffin  in  her  arms. 
And  at  night,  in  one  of  the  canals  that  intersect  this 
thoroughfare,  upon  a  barge  piled  high  with  logs  I 
watched  a  peasant  and  his  little  son  stolidly  cooking  sup 
per  over  a  stone  fireplace  in  the  stern  of  the  clumsy  craft. 
Faces  quiet  as  the  forests  out  of  which  those  logs  had 
come.  And  even  the  city  seemed  quiet  that  night. 

But  beneath  this  quiet  I  could  feel  the  ever  deepening 
suspense.  The  revolution  was  four  months  old;  the  first 
great  burst  of  happiness  and  hope  and  faith  was  left 
behind;  and  while  the  government  of  Kerensky  already 
tottered  to  its  fall,  every  little  citizen  of  the  groping  new 
republic  asked,  "What  next?  And  what  will  it  mean 
to  me  ?"  In  a  dark  corridor  of  my  hotel  I  came  around  a 
corner  and  nearly  ran  into  a  woman  who  was  coming 
the  opposite  way.  With  a  quick  start  and  gasping  breath 
she  broke  into  violent  sobs  and  went  running  down  the 
hall.  Just  a  woman  with  nerves?  But  I  saw  so  many 
faces  with  nerves,  not  alone  but  in  hundreds.  On  the 
street  in  an  instant  crowds  would  form.  Loud  furious 
talking,  hysterical  eyes — speakers  arguing  on  all  sides — 
some  well-dressed  and  others  ragged,  men  and  women 
and  even  young  boys,  who  flourished  their  thin  little 
arms  and  pierced  the  din  with  their  shrill  cries.  And 
before  the  newspaper  bulletins  stood  throngs  of  people 
day  and  night  reading  the  news  from  the  Russian  front, 


294  BLIND 

news  of  the  widening  revolt,  strikes  and  upheavals  of  all 
kinds — Russia  strained  to  the  breaking  point  with  the 
Great  War  and  the  Great  Revolution — bursting  out,  then 
dying  down.  I  thought  of  the  crowds  three  years  before 
upon  the  Friedrichstrasse,  and  of  the  old  crone  who  had 
screamed  the  name  of  her  newspaper  into  their  ears.  Die 
Zukunft — what  would  it  be  ? 

Suddenly  there  burst  like  a  storm  the  first  Bolshevist 
insurrection.  All  one  sultry  afternoon  thicker  and  thicker 
gathered  the  crowds,  until  by  night  the  Nevsky  was 
packed  for  a  mile  with  a  black  solid  mass,  through  which 
in  two  narrow  lanes  rushed  big  trucks  and  automobiles 
bristling  with  bayonets,  packed  with  students,  workmen 
and  soldiers,  shouting  and  scattering  proclamations  over 
the  heads  of  the  multitude.  Speakers  ranted  on  all  sides, 
red  flags  appeared  by  hundreds,  songs  were  heard;  and 
as  night  drew  on,  denser,  denser  grew  the  throng.  All 
at  once  from  just  ahead  of  me  the  hard  deep  rattle  of  a 
machine  gun  started  instant  panic  here,  and  I  felt  the 
wild  power  of  the  mob.  No  shrieks  or  calls,  but  rush 
ing  feet,  the  hiss  of  bullets  overhead  and  the  heavy 
crash  of  plate-glass  windows  as  the  frenzied  people 
hurled  themselves  into  the  shops.  Every  fellow  who  had 
a  gun  seemed  to  be  shooting  at  random  now.  I  had 
thrown  myself  face  downward,  and  others  were  flop 
ping  all  about.  Two  landed  right  on  top  of  me.  In  a 
moment  I  felt  a  hand  grasp  mine — and  I  swear  I  cannot 
tell  you  whether  it  was  a  man  or  a  woman  whose  hand 
I  held  through  the  rest  of  the  storm! 

In  a  few  minutes  the  firing  ceased  almost  as  abruptly 
as  it  began.  Gone  were  the  crowds,  and  on  the  curbs 
sat  soldiers  and  workingmen  in  long  lines  quietly  smok 
ing  cigarettes  and  talking  things  over.  What  a  people! 
Again  and  again  in  the  next  few  days  did  these  street 
battles  suddenly  start — and  as  quickly  end — till  at  last 
the  Kerensky  government  once  more  got  the  upper 


BLIND  295 

hand.    I  lived  in  the  streets — till  one  afternoon,  in  a  cab 
with  a  friend,  I  heard  him  say, 

"Hello,  old  man,  what  the  devil's  wrong?" 

And  then  I  pitched  into  his  arms. 


4. 

"It's  the  water  and  the  black  bread  and  all  the  rest 
of  their  rotten  food,"  the  English  doctor  told  me.  But 
he  was  wrong,  for  I  have  a  digestion  like  a  goat.  It  was 
the  revolution.  For  a  week  I  kept  to  my  room,  in  bed  at 
first  and  then  at  the  window,  glad  to  quiet  down  and 
rest.  I  re-read  Kipling's  "Kim"  and  smoked,  and 
watched  the  life  in  the  courtyard — a  great  square  well 
with  entry-ways  like  tunnels  to  the  world  outside.  Here 
were  enormous  piles  of  wood,  and  in  a  slow  and  leisurely 
way  two  men  were  adding  to  the  pile  with  logs  brought 
in  on  huge  wheeled  carts.  At  an  open  window  across 
the  way  a  woman  watered  geranium  plants;  in  another 
three  Scotch  Red  Cross  nurses  sat  chatting  and  laugh 
ing  over  their  tea,  and  on  Sunday  sang  "Lead  Kindly 
Light."  At  a  window  just  above  them,  a  large  black- 
bearded  Russian  in  a  red  silk  blouse  sat  smoking,  and 
once  in  a  rich  baritone  he  sang  some  plaintive  Russian 
airs.  Below  in  the  court  from  time  to  time  the  hotel  'bus 
would  rumble  in,  and  as  the  old  driver  unharnessed  his 
horses  he  talked  to  them  softly  or  made  a  whistling  hiss 
ing  sound.  The  deep  voice  of  the  city  was  a  rough  low 
hubbub  here,  but  out  of  it  came  sudden  voices,  laughter, 
shouting,  day  and  night. 

What  were  they  all  up  to?  A  turgid  ocean  of  dreams 
out  there,  and  hopes  and  passions,  feuds  and  quarrels, 
surging  up  on  every  side,  and  extending  out  in  wave  on 
wave  to  the  North  of  China,  down  to  Persia.  How  could 
I  dig  into  it  all?  Oh,  for  an  interpreter  and  guide! 
There  were  plenty  such  to  be  had.  but  each  was  set  on 
interpreting  from  his  own  little  point  of  view — Bol- 


296  BLIND 

shevik    or    Menshevik,    Kadet    or    Czarist — take    your 
choice. 

"What  I'm  looking  for,"  said  one  of  my  friends,  "is 
just  a  simple  plain  damn  fool." 

I  thought  of  Oberookoff.  I  wired  to  the  small  town 
where  he  lived,  and  at  the  end  of  another  week  he 
arrived  to  show  me  the  revolution.  He  limped  as  he 
came  into  my  room,  for  he  had  been  badly  wounded  in 
the  first  year  of  the  war.  He  looked  much  older;  at 
forty-eight  his  hair  was  almost  wholly  gray.  But  he  was 
still  tall  and  powerful.  With  the  old  familiar  genial 
smile,  he  lugged  in  an  enormous  bag,  in  which  in  addi 
tion  to  books  and  clothes  there  was  a  pillow  and  a 
blanket.  He  would  sleep  right  here  on  the  floor,  he 
declared.  He  was  so  happy  he  all  but  hugged  me.  With 
tears  in  his  eyes  he  poured  out  his  questions  about  Steve 
and  Lucy,  Tommy  and  my  Aunt  Amelia.  Then  we  came 
to  the  business  in  hand. 

"Well — the  revolution!  It  goes  splendidly!"  he 
cried.  "We  must  not  stay  long  in  Petrograd,  but  go  to 
Moscow — Russia  is  there !  Then  we  shall  go  to  the  little 
towns  and  the  villages.  The  deep  Russia  is  there !  Here 
it  is  like  the  funeral  place  of  a  weak  sick  unhappy  old 
man.  All  the  diseases  are  left  in  the  room.  The  first  joy 
of  our  freedom  is  gone — and  in  America  you  would  say 
that  in  this  city  there  is  a  great  grouch.  Men  scheme  and . 
criticize  till  they  are  sick.  Then  they  throw  up  their 
hands  and  say,  'Neechevo' — which  means,  'It  is  noth 
ing.  What  is  the  use  ?'  They  are  like  that.  They  were  t 
made  like  that  ever  since  they  were  born — by  the  bad 
education  of  their  souls.  For  they  got  such  a  habit  of 
criticizing  the  rotten  government  everywhere  that  they 
cannot  lose  this  habit  now,  even  when  the  government 
is  one  that  they  have  made  themselves.  This  bad  habit 
they  must  lose.  They  must  come  together  like  sensible 
brothers,  every  man's  spirit  strong  with  faith — and  they 


BLIND  297 

must  push  the  government  on.  But  this  means  education. 
We  must  start  with  the  littlest  kids.  Schools  by  thou 
sands  must  be  built,  and  great  splendid  colleges,  in  every 
corner  of  the  land.  And  these  must  send  students  all 
over  the  world  to  learn  and  make  friends  in  other  lands. 
Then  wars  will  cease." 

"But  how  about  this  war?"  I  asked  "My  newspaper 
keeps  cabling.  They  want  to  know  if  Russia  will  fight." 

"Of  course  we  must  fight!"  Oberookoff  declared.  "We 
must  fight  to  the  last  drop  of  blood!  But  what  do  you 
Americans  know  about  the  cost  of  fighting?"  he  con 
tinued  sadly.  "You  have  yet  not  even  begun.  Three 
years  ago  I  was  wounded.  It  is  nothing.  Most  of  my 
friends  are  dead.  I  saw  them  give  their  souls  to  God.  We 
have  given  more  blood  than  all  the  Allies — ten  million 
killed  or  wounded,  or  dead  of  diseases  and  fearful 
plagues.  But  of  course  we  must  fight.  If  we  do  not,  the 
Kaiser  will  spoil  our  revolution.  We  must  fight  till  his 
people  are  free  men.  And  we  must  make  our  own  coun 
try  so  beautiful,  so  strong  with  work  and  strong  with  the 
happiness  of  all,  that  other  nations  will  do  the  same — 
and  then  we  shall  come  together  as  friends.  But  this 
means  education,"  he  repeated  impressively. 

He  repeated  it  from  time  to  time,  all  through  those 
discouraging  weeks  we  spent  together  in  Petrograd.  The 
deeper  the  chaos,  gloom  and  despair,  the  warmer  burned 
this  villager's  faith.  He  was  wonderful,  this  "simple 
damn  fool,"  this  lame  country  teacher  with  his  great 
dream.  A  child,  a  father,  a  kind  quiet  friend,  bearing 
with  all  my  impatience  and  irritable  outbursts — I  remem 
ber  clearly  still  his  homely  face  and  smiling  eyes.  Often 
he  seems  to  be  here  while  I  write.  But  I  remember  little 
or  nothing  of  the  men  with  whom  we  talked  in  the  big 
government  buildings.  In  dreary  succession,  they  rise  in 
my  mind  unreal  as  so  many  phantoms  now.  Some  of 
them  had  been  working  hard  for  long  weary  baffling 


298  BLIND 

weeks,  but  they  felt  themselves  so  hampered  and  bound 
that  they  were  ready  to  throw  up  their  hands.  For  the 
great  machine  of  government  was  hopelessly  stalled;  it 
would  not  start.  On  the  one  side,  the  prodigious  con 
fusion  coming  from  the  war;  on  the  other,  the  swiftly 
deepening  chaos  of  the  revolution. 

"How  can  we  attend  to  both  at  once  ?"  one  official  bit 
terly  exclaimed.  "Why  do  you  Americans  and  French 
and  English  keep  demanding  of  us  only,  'Will  you  fight  ?' 
We  have  Russia  on  our  hands — with  a  mighty  revolu 
tion  here !  And  to  us  and  to  you  this  is  more  vital  even 
than  the  war  itself.  For  if  you  will  not  help  us  now,  this 
nation  will  go  whirling  down  into  such  confusion  as 
will  spread  like  fire  over  the  earth !" 

So  spoke  these  men  who  were  vainly  trying  to  hold 
the  great  rebellion  back.  Oh,  for  a  sensible  revolution! 
In  those  hot  and  stagnant  weeks  the  practical  Yankee 
soul  within  me  boiled  with  exasperation  at  times.  If  only 
these  queer  people  would  get  rid  of  their  "great  grouch/' 
their  "neechevo"  their  shouted  dreams  clashing  each 
upon  the  others;  pick  one  radical  scheme  from  the  lot 
and  give  it  a  fair  try,  work  it  out — and  meanwhile  keep 
their  armies  a  little  longer  at  the  front — a  few  months 
more  and  the  world  would  be  safe  from  the  Kaiser's 
little  dream  for  us  all!  But  the  mood  would  pass;  and 
drawn  again  into  the  vortex  close  about,  my  mind  would 
be  held  spellbound  by  this  gigantic  whirl  of  events,  out 
of  which  a  new  world  was  being  born. 

5. 

I  was  watching  now  the  Soviet.  Late  one  afternoon 
we  came  to  the  rambling  palace  of  yellow  stucco  built  by 
Katherine  the  Great  for  one  of  her  lovers  long  ago. 
There  was  a  lovely  park  behind  it,  with  a  little  lake; 
and  in  front  was  a  courtyard,  in  which  the  grass  and 
shrubbery  had  recently  been  trampled  down.  There  were 


BLIND  299 

wings  on  either  side  this  court,  with  huge  columned 
porticoes.  We  entered  between  the  bayonets  of  two  sol 
diers  there  on  guard,  and  went  through  to  the  Catherine 
Hall,  long,  immense,  rectangular,  with  high  narrow  gal 
leries  on  each  side  and  lofty  windows  at  the  ends. 
Through  these  windows  streamed  the  sunlight,  and  the 
shining  paths  it  made  were  swarming  thick  with  mil 
lions  of  tiny  particles  of  dust,  which  rose  like  smoke 
from  the  chaos  below,  in  which  millions  of  bitter  mem 
ories,  passions,  hopes,  desires,  dreams,  had  swarmed 
and  whirled  in  these  last  months. 

For  the  Great  Revolution  had  centered  here.  Here, 
where  in  the  days  gone  by  the  immense  ballroom  had 
been  filled  with  the  wealth  and  glitter  and  gaiety,  the 
dancing,  gambling,  drinking  of  Russia  in  Great  Kather- 
ine's  time,  now  the  common  herd  had  come  in;  and  the 
place  still  seethed  and  smelled  and  echoed  with  the  dirt 
and  din.  Long  lines  of  soldiers,  their  guns  stacked,  lay 
dead  asleep  upon  the  floor.  Others  were  drinking  tea  or 
soup  from  huge  pails  and  kettles,  and  eating  chunks  of 
black  bread.  Bits  of  food  and  refuse,  rags  and  old  papers 
still  littered  the  floor;  heavy  animal  smells  hung  in  the 
air;  and  amid  a  harsh  vibrating  din,  soldiers  and  sailors, 
workmen  and  peasants,  tramped  about  or  stood  in  a 
crowd  which  was  being  addressed  by  a  pale-faced  youth 
who  shouted  down  from  a  stairway. 

With  difficulty  getting  a  pass  to  the  chamber  where 
the  Deputies  met,  I  succeeded  at  last  and  took  my  seat, 
with  Oberookoff  beside  me,  in  the  small  press  gallery. 
It  was  a  square  low  ceilinged  hall.  A  skylight  threw  a 
soft  gray  light  on  the  men  below,  in  long  semi-circular 
rows,  a  few  of  them  writing  or  reading,  some  leaning 
back  with  cigarettes  but  more  with  elbows  on  their  desks 
and  scowls  of  absorption,  listening  hard  to  the  man  in 
the  high  speaker's  box.  This  was  the  All  Russian  Coun 
cil  of  Workmen's  and  Soldiers'  Deputies.  Four  hundred 


300  BLIND 

men  in  sober  gray  suits  or  in  blouses  white  or  brown  or 
black.  The  broad  white  and  blue  collars  of  sailor  suits 
gave  some  color  here  and  there.  To  my  surprise  I 
noticed  some  fifty  officers'  uniforms;  and  nearly  a  third 
of  the  Deputies  wore  on  their  breasts  the  small  white 
cross  of  the  university  graduate.  Far  from  riotous,  this 
crowd,  intent  and  silent,  listening  to  speeches  which  for 
the  most  part  lasted  but  a  few  minutes  each  and  were 
delivered  in  tense  low  tones. 

Here  was  the  real  seat  of  government,  the  storm  cen 
ter  of  ideas.  The  life  of  a  nation  in  fever  surged  into 
this  old  palace,  and  I  grew  absorbed  in  these  messen 
gers  from  the  turbulent  land  outside.  From  cities,  ugly 
factory  towns,  from  villages  buried  in  forests  or  scat 
tered  along  rocky  coasts  or  over  the  limitless  rolling 
steppes,  petitioners  came  clamoring  in.  What  costumes! 
Men  from  all  over  the  North  of  Europe  and  Asia  seemed 
to  be  here !  Whole  delegations,  in  they  marched.  From 
mines  and  mills  and  factories,  to  demand  that  all  these 
be  given  at  once  into  the  hands  of  the  workers  them 
selves.  Down  with  the  bosses!  Why  throw  out  the 
Czar,  if  the  real  tyrants  were  still  to  be  left  in  control  of 
the  daily  lives  of  the  people?  Others  came  from  Fin 
land,  Esthonia  and  the  Ukraine,  from  Poland  and 
Siberia,  demanding  freedom  and  self-rule.  And  from 
the  Russian  fleets  they  came  to  demand  that  admirals  be 
arrested  and  insurgent  leaders  freed;  and  from  the 
armies  at  the  front,  to  inveigh  against  the  reforms  of 
Kornilov.  No  more  discipline!  No  more  war! 

And  from  the  numberless  villages,  where  more  than  a 
hundred  million  peasants  toiled  on  wretched  plots  of  soil 
with  tools  and  ploughs  all  worn  and  broken  from  the 
long  strain  of  the  great  war,  they  came  to  demand  both 
land  and  tools.  Let  the  land  of  the  private  estates  be 
seized  and  given  to  their  use.  Let  peace  be  made  and 
their  young  sons  sent  back  to  the  farms  that  needed  them 


BLIND  301 

so.  Else  Russia  would  soon  be  a  starving  land!  And 
then  let  the  revolution  cease;  let  the  workingmen  go 
back  to  their  jobs,  to  make  the  clothing  and  the  shoes, 
the  tools  and  ploughs  and  horseshoes,  and  all  the  other 
simple  things  the  peasants  needed  on  their  farms.  Else 
they  would  no  longer  sell  food  to  the  cities ! 

Oh  for  a  sensible  revolution!  One  might  as  well  ask 
the  Great  War  to  be  nice.  There  were  moderates  in  the 
Soviet,  but  though  still  in  the  majority  they  went  about 
with  worried  eyes.  For  the  eighty  Bolsheviki  here, 
though  downed  by  overwhelming  vote  in  every  trial  of 
strength  they  made,  still  with  a  cheerful  arrogance  con 
tinued  their  insistent  cry: 

"Bread  for  the  Workers!  Land  for  the  Peasants! 
Peace  for  the  World  1" 

For  they  knew  that  the  surging  masses  outside  were 
back  of  them  in  their  demands.  A  group  intense,  devoted, 
arrogant,  intolerant,  ready  to  tear  the  whole  world 
down.  Nothing  half  way,  no  compromise,  no  careful 
adapting,  no  deliberate  change.  The  whole  business  at  a, 
jump !  I  disliked  them  because,  as  it  seemed  to  me,  they 
were  doing  such  an  easy  thing.  It  is  easy  to  touch  a 
match  to  a  house.  How  about  the  women  and  children 
inside  ?  As  the  great  Mirabeau  once  said,  "To  tear  down 
is  the  work  of  pigmies.  It  takes  giants  to  construct." 
And  these  men  did  not  seem  to  me  giants;  they  seemed 
rigid,  narrow,  small.  As  my  little  miner  friend  from 
Nevada  told  me  bitterly  one  night,  when  he  had  come 
back  from  the  front. 

"They  want  to  hog  this  whole  revolution!  Not  a 
chance  for  your  view  or  mine !  I  am  a  Red,  too — under 
stand — but  I  belong  to  a  different  crowd  of  Reds  from 
theirs.  So  to  hell  with  me — I  must  swallow  their  view 
or  get  a  bayonet  stuck  in  my  throat!  God  damn  these 
Bolsheviki !" 

So  much  for  my  first  impression.    My  feeling  was 


302  BLIND 

changed  to  some  degree,  and  not  a  little  clarified,  by  a 
man  I  met  about  this  time.  I  needed  a  new  interpreter. 
In  that  dirty  old  palace  of  din,  poor  Oherookoff  had 
become  so  depressed,  so  glum  and  wretched,  that  he  was 
almost  useless  now.  I  must  hire  another  pair  of  ears. 
And  through  the  inquiries  I  made  I  came  upon  a  large 
tall  man  with  thick  brown  hair  and  beard,  brown  eyes 
with  a  steady  clear  expression  looking  directly  into  mine. 
He  spoke  English  with  barely  a  trace  of  accent,  in  a 
deliberate  manner,  with  frequent  stops,  each  word  articu 
lated  clearly.  His  voice  was  invariably  low.  He  was 
one  of  the  Bolsheviki.  This  fact  he  stated  frankly  during 
the  first  talk  we  had. 

"All  right,"  I  said,  "I  should  like  to  get  the  point  of 
view  of  you  fellows." 

"That  should  be  easy,"  he  answered  calmly.  Then  he 
looked  at  me.  "But  it  will  be  hard." 

"Why?" 

"You  are  different,"  he  said. 

I  went  with  him  to  the  Soviet.  Through  many  long 
tense  sessions  I  remember  his  low  voice  in  my  ear,  in 
brief  phrases  now  and  then  giving  me  the  run  of  the 
talk;  but  the  speeches  that  I  heard  are  a  mere  jumble  to 
me  now.  They  all  group  together  in  my  mind  behind 
one  talk  I  had  with  him.  While  eating  a  greasy  supper 
in  a  dirty  restaurant,  we  happened  to  be  speaking  of  the 
Russian  calendar,  different  by  thirteen  days  from  the 
calendar  in  other  lands.  It  must  of  course  be  changed, 
he  was  saying. 

"Hello,"  I  remarked  with  a  little  surprise.  "This  hap 
pens  to  be  my  birthday."  My  companion  smiled  at  me. 

"Yes?  And  it  is  mine,"  he  said.  "In  what  year  were 
you  born?"  I  told  him.  "So  was  I,"  he  answered. 

Then  for  a  time  we  tried  to  picture  the  two  spots  on 
the  face  of  this  earth  where  we  two  men  had  begun  our 
lives  on  that  day  of  long  ago.  In  reply  to  his  questions  I 


BLIND  303 

told  him  something  of  Seven  Pines,  of  Aunt  Amelia, 
Dad,  my  boyhood,  school  and  college  and  New  York. 

"My  experience  was  not  the  same,"  he  said  quietly 
at  the  end.  "On  that  same  day  I  was  born  in  a  room 
which  was  damp  and  hot,  half  under  the  ground,  in  a 
very  poor  little  town  near  the  Baltic  Coast.  As  you 
know,  I  am  a  Lett.  My  father  ran  a  small  restaurant. 
It  was  poor  and  filthy.  Workingmen  came  there  to  eat, 
and  to  drink  tea  and  vodka.  Often  at  night  they  would 
shout  and  fight  till  the  smell  of  their  sweat  was  bad  to 
breathe.  We  lived  behind  in  two  dark  rooms.  The  first 
thing  in  my  life  I  remember  is  a  journey  I  made  one 
night  by  creeping  in  under  the  restaurant  tables.  I  got 
a  kick  from  a  man  who  was  drunk."  He  broke  off  and 
looked  calmly  back.  "It  was  like  that,"  he  continued. 
"Later  I  went  to  a  little  school — but  the  teacher  was  a 
drunkard  and  had  a  disease  in  his  stomach  besides.  I 
learned  almost  nothing.  At  fourteen  I  joined  a  circle 
of  students  and  young  workingmen.  We  talked  of  revo 
lution.  I  borrowed  books  of  many  kinds  and  read  them. 
Then  my  father  died,  and  by  working  hard  with  my 
mother  I  made  our  restaurant  pay  enough  so  that  I  could 
go  to  a  gymnasium  (high  school).  After  that  I  hoped 
in  some  way  to  get  into  a  university. 

"But  in  1905  came  the  first  revolution.  It  failed 
because  we  allowed  the  bourgeois  liberals  to  control. 
'Take  the  safe  and  sane  road/  these  gentlemen  said. 
Their  road  led  back  to  such  a  reaction  as  made  even 
them  indignant — but  by  that  time  they  were  helpless — 
the  Old  Regime  was  again  on  top.  Thousands  of  revolu 
tionists  were  executed  or  died  in  prisons.  Hundreds  of 
thousands  were  exiled.  I  was  one.  I  was  sent  to  Irkutsk 
— which  was  not  so  bad,  for  we  have  a  large  city  there* 
I  became  a  teacher  in  one  of  the  schools.  I  already  knew 
German.  Now  I  learned  French  and  English,  too — and 
I  taught  these  languages.  They  are  useful  to  Internal 


304  BLIND 

tionalists.  Later  I  escaped  to  Berlin,  and  taught  Russian, 
French  and  English  there  until  last  March.  Then  I  came 
back."  He  was  silent  for  a  moment.  "Yes,"  he  con 
cluded,  "from  that  day  when  you  and  I  came  into  the 
world,  my  experience  has  been  different." 

"As  different,"  I  ventured,  "as  Russia  and  America." 

"As  different,"  he  corrected  me,  "as  being  rich  and 
being  poor.  As  a  writer  you  have  to  some  extent  left 
the  bourgeois  world  of  thought.  But  your  life  has  been 
easy,  and  for  that  cause  you  cannot  deeply  feel  the  need 
of  changes  sharp  and  sweeping — at  any  risk — come  what 
may.  Like  our  liberals  of  1905,  you  would  have  us  take 
the  safe  sane  road.  But  we  know  where  that  led  us  in 
1905  and  where  it  is  leading  us  today.  Kerensky  and 
his  moderate  friends,  both  socialists  and  liberals,  are  sin 
cere  and  they  mean  well.  Why  is  it  they  do  noth 
ing  but  talk?  Because  they're  afraid  to  make  the  great 
changes,  take  the  leap  into  the  dark — stop  the  war,  give 
the  peasants  the  land  and  the  workingmen  the  factories, 
take  over  the  whole  government.  My  party  will  win,"  he 
continued,  "because  we  are  ready  to  take  that  leap.1' 

"Into  the  dark,"  I  reminded  him.  He  looked  at  me 
calmly. 

"Yes,  you  are  right.  But  we  are  ready  to  assume  the 
full  responsibility.  Long  ago  we  saw  clearly  the  fatal 
mistake  that  was  being  made  by  socialists  in  every  land 
— to  wait  patiently  till  they  had  v;on  a  majority  at  the 
polls.  We  decided  this  was  foolish — that  all  real  prog 
ress  in  the  past  had  been  made  by  minorities,  courage 
ous  enough  to  take  the  leap;  and  that  it  was  also  dan 
gerous,  because  the  bourgeois  governments  would  force 
the  issue  to  civil  war  before  they  would  let  it  come  to  the 
polls.  So  we  shall  seize  the  power  at  the  first  opportunity 
now — and  within  a  few  years  the  mass  of  men,  with 
fear  and  oppression  off  their  backs,  will  come  around 
to  our  point  of  view.  Then  we  shall  have  democracy. 


BLIND  305 

"If  we  wait  till  the  end  of  the  war,  it  will  be  too  late," 
he  said.  "The  bourgeois  in  the  meantime  will  have  come 
into  control.  So  we  must  make  peace  at  once  and  begin 
to  build  a  new  Russia  here.  Let  Germany  win  the  war, 
we  say.  It  will  make  no  difference.  For  our  idea  is 
stronger  than  that  of  the  Junkers  in  Berlin.  It  will  pierce 
into  Germany  and  all  other  lands  as  well.  And  the  world 
will  then  be  safe  for  the  masses  who  have  for  cen 
turies  performed  all  the  dirty  heavy  labor  and  had  only 
poverty  in  return." 

So  this  man  summed  up  his  creed.  And  he  was  so 
blunt  and  honest  that  I  think  if  he  were  with  me  now — 
(and  often  he  seems  indeed  to  be  here) — he  would  admit 
that  his  party  has  been  driven  by  events  to  yield  the 
rigid  principles  for  which  they  fought  the  moderates 
and  "hogged  the  revolution."  For  out  of  all  the  rumors 
and  lies  about  the  Soviet  Regime,  this  much  at  least 
seems  to  be  clear.  They  have  built  up  their  power  by 
compromise  all  along  the  line — forced  by  grim  realities 
to  give  up,  at  least  for  years  to  come,  their  communistic 
scheme  for  the  land  and  let  the  property-loving  peasants 
practically  own  their  little  farms;  forced  to  take  back 
the  old  employers;  managers  and  engineers,  at  enormous, 
salaries,  into  the  factories,  mines  and  mills,  to  bring  some 
semblance  of  order  out  of  the  committee  mob-rule;  and 
in  the  army  and  navy  forced  to  restore  rigid  discipline, 
including  even  the  peine  de  mort  against  which  in  former 
days  they  stormed  as  the  very  essence  of  the  formef 
tyranny.  They  have  compromised.  And  among  them 
selves  a  new  minority  group  has  arisen;  bitter  against 
the  "bourgeois  gang"  surrounding  Lenine  in  his  govern 
ment. 

So  by  upheavals,  jerks  and  turns,  this  queer  old  world 
moves  slowly  oh.  But  who  can  say  they  were  wholly 
wrong?  Was  the  Bolshevist  seizure  of  power  a* happen- 
ing  good  or  bad  for  the  essential  progress  and  happiness 


306  BLIND 

of  all  mankind?  It  is  perhaps  too  soon  to  tell.  But  to 
me  it  seems,  as  I  sit  here  and  quietly  try  to  think  it  out, 
that  the  deep  angry  forces  which  have  shaken  the  world 
since  then  were  let  loose  by  the  war  itself  and  not  by 
any  one  group  of  men,  and  that  what  is  happening  today 
would  have  happened  in  any  case.  It  was  bound  to  be 
so.  To  that  extent  at  least  this  war  has  made  of  me  a 
fatalist. 


6. 

In  such  a  mood  there  comes  to  me  the  memory  of  a 
little  man  I  chanced  to  meet  in  Moscow.  We  spent  an 
unforgettable  night. 

There  with  Oberookoff,  for  some  days  I  had  given  in 
to  the  charm  of  that  lovable  friendly  old  town,  which 
seemed  so  quiet  and  serene  in  the  face  of  the  impending 
storm — deep  sunk  in  ancient  memories,  with  its  crooked 
hilly  streets,  its  palaces,  its  theatres,  its  churches, 
churches  everywhere,  their  shining  spires,  rounded 
domes,  green  or  a  deep  vivid  blue.  Their  bells,  some 
harsh  and  jangling,  but  others  low  sepulchral  booms, 
kept  summoning  all  Russians  still  to  turn  their  eyes 
tip  to  the  heavens  and  the  everlasting  God.  How  deep 
it  seemed  to  burn,  this  faith.  Even  in  the  busy  streets 
I  would  come  upon  a  motionless  throng  gathered  before 
some  holy  shrine  like  a  cavern  set  among  the  shops,  with 
its  candles  large  and  small  gleaming  softly  from  within. 
The  sweet  heavy  odor  of  incense  would  come  out  of  the 
dark  little  place,  and  a  wailing  burst  of  voices  singing. 
And  it  seemed  as  though  the  whole  revolution  had  for 
the  moment  dropped  out  of  their  lives.  But  on  the  faces 
of  passers-by  I  noticed  smiles  of  derision  for  this  fuss 
and  mummery.  One  day  in  a  shadowy  old  church  I 
found  a  woman  kneeling  before  a  tiny  figure  of  the 
Christ-Child  in  a  coffin  there.  She  was  whispering 
tensely,  rapidly.  Close  by  in  the  semi-darkness  sat  two 


BLIND  307 

young  soldiers  watching  her — one  of  them  solemn  and 
round-eyed,  the  other  with  a  puzzled  frown. 

And  I  saw  this  same  puzzled  look  upon  many  faces 
one  lovely  summer's  afternoon  in  a  courtyard  of  the 
Kremlin,  which  rises  out  of  the  heart  of  the  town,  its 
palaces  and  churches  encircled  by  old  fortress  walls. 
Here  in  ages  long  gone  by  the  Czars  of  All  the  Russias 
had  come  to  receive  their  power  from  God.  I  sat  with 
Oberookoff  near  a  dark  grandiloquent  giant,  a  great 
bronze  statue  of  a  Czar.  Three  middle-aged  soldiers, 
dirty  and  ragged,  came  and  stood  staring  up  for  a 
moment ;  then  they  turned  without  a  word  and  wandered 
aimlessly  away.  A  man  and  a  woman  came  with  their 
child,  a  little  girl  in  a  blue  cotton  dress.  They  sat  down 
on  the  bench  and  looked  up  at  the  Czar,  talking  in  low 
voices.  The  small  girl  kept  solemnly  gazing  up,  till  a  bird 
lit  on  the  outstretched  arm.  Then  she  nudged  her 
mother  and  pointed  to  it  silently.  A  whole  crowd  of 
young  soldiers  came  tramping  along,  smoking,  spitting; 
and  talking  in  loud  confident  voices.  They  stopped  and 
for  a  moment  I  saw  again  those  puzzled  scowls.  Then  a 
low  laugh  and  various  jokes,  and  much  amusement  over 
this  Czar.  Later  two  little  Chinamen  came  and  stood 
squinting  up  at  that  dark  face.  An  old  man  and  a  boy 
in  peasant  clothes  stopped  longer  here  than  all  the  rest; 
and  as  they  slowly  went  away,  several  times  they  turned 
to  look  back  as  though  some  specter  were  behind. 

"It  is  interesting,"  said  a  voice. 

Not  far  away  sat  a  thin  little  man  with  a  pointed 
black  beard  and  quizzical  eyes.  He  spoke  English  very 
brokenly.  With  a  smile  and  a  shrug  he  gave  it  up  and 
spoke  in  his  native  tongue : 

'They  are  like  children.  Is  it  not  so?  'What  have 
we  done?'  they  are  asking.  'And  what  shall  we  do? 
What  shall  we  build  in  place  of  this?*  All  Russia  is 
like  that,'*  he  said.  "Frankly,  I  see  nothing  ahead. 


308  B  L  I  N  TJ 

Samson  is  shaking  the  pillars,  and  the  whole  temple  is 
crashing  down.  As  for  me,  I  closed  my  office  this  week. 
My  workingmen  demand  so  much  that  I  cannot  go  on. 
Better  hide  what  little  money  is  left  and  so  keep  alive  as 
long  as  I  can.  But  after  all,  why  should  I  complain? 
For  I  was  an  architect,  and  when  I  think  of  what  I  tore 
down  and  of  what  I  built  in  its  place,  I  see  that  I,  too, 
was  bringing  about  a  revolution."  He  smiled  and  said, 
"Perhaps  it  would  amuse  you  to  come  and  see  what  I 
have  done." 

He  took  us  to  his  apartment,  and  though  it  was  but 
four  o'clock  he  asked  his  servant  to  get  us  some  supper. 
The  walls  of  his  rooms  were  crowded  with  pictures, 
photographs  of  paintings,  and  worn  bits  of  tapestry.  He 
brought  out  some  heavy  folios  filled  with  old  engravings 
of  Moscow  homes  in  years  gone  by  and  country  homes 
on  the  great  estates.  He  was  called  away  to  his  tele 
phone,  where  he  entered  into  a  long  conversation  inter;- 
spersed  with  jokes  and  chuckles. 

"She  is  a  wonderful  girl!"  he  declared,  when  at  last 
lie  had  finished.  "So  bright  and  gay  and  full  of  life — 
and  such  a  clever  comedienne  that  already  at  nineteen 
she  has  made  an  enormous  success !" 

Surely  the  Great  Revolution  did  not  weigh  heavily  on 
his  soul.  After  a  very  sketchy  meal,  we  went  out,  and 
in  the  deepening  dusk  and  on  into  the  evening  we 
explored  the  quieter  streets  of  the  town,  where  he  showed 
me  many  lovely  homes  of  faded  pink  or  yellow  stucco, 
hidden  treasures  of  the  past,  many  half  in  ruins  now. 
He  talked  of  the  balls  and  banquets  there  and  the 
grandeur  of  long  ago.  Many  of  these  houses  had  large 
cobbled  courts  behind,  surrounded  by  long  rows  of  huts. 
In  days  gone  by,  the  owners  had  driven  in  from  their 
country  estates  each  autumn  bringing  many  serfs — not 
only  household  servants  but  carpenters  and  blacksmiths, 


BLIND  309 

shoemakers  and  tailors,  bakers — and  these  courtyards 
with  their  huts  had  been  like  walled  in  villages. 

He  asked  what  Russian  books  I  had  read;  and  while 
we  talked  of  Tolstoy,  he  took  me  to  a  garden  shut  off 
from  the  street  by  a  high  wall.  Looking  through  the 
gateway,  far  back  across  the  garden  I  saw  a  great  low 
building  of  faded  yellow  stucco  with  a  wing  on  either 
side  and  many  slender  columns  of  white.  Built  into  one 
end  was  a  little  chapel. 

"It  was  there,  in  War  and  Peace/  that  Natasha  was 
married  to  Pierre." 

What  a  curious  little  man  to  come  across  in  a  revolu 
tion!  And  yet,  for  all  his  love  of  old  homes,  he  had 
torn  dozens  of  them  down  and  had  built  in  their  places 
large  six  floor  apartment  buildings  in  the  style  of  modern 
Berlin. 

"Moscow  is  doomed — she  must  become  a  town  of 
apartment  buildings,"  he  said.  "This  is  the  revolution 
that  I  have  helped  to  bring  about — and  so  I  have  no 
right  to  complain." 

Other  invaders  had  pushed  in — huge  garish  gorge 
ous  modern  homes  built  by  the  rich  manufacturers  and 
merchants  of  this  changing  town.  Slowly  but  surely, 
year  by  year,  they  had  crowded  the  old  families  out. 
But  now,  before  they  had  time  to  finish,  they  in  turn 
were  being  pushed  and  crowded  by  their  workingmen. 

"Their  serfs  have  risen,"  said  my  guide,  "and  mean 
while  out  in  the  country  the  children  of  the  serfs  of  the 
past  are  looking  at  the  old  estates  with  greedy  and  impa 
tient  eyes.  So  it  goes  on,  this  Great  Revolution.  The 
beginning  was  in  France  more  than  a  hundred  years  ago. 
It  is  but  half  finished  now,  it  has  only  reached  its  climax. 
People  in  the  future  will  look  back  on  these  two  hundred 
years  as  one  immense  transition — from  the  world  of 
serfs  and  nobles— to  what?  Ha— ha,  my  friends,  to 
what?" 


310  BLIND 

It  was  quite  dark  when  we  stopped  in  front  of  an 
immense  old  palace,  once  the  home  of  a  Grand  Duke. 
Now  a  throng  of  soldiers  and  workingmen  poured  in 
and  out;  for  it  was  become  headquarters  of  the  Moscow 
Soviet. 

"This  is  history,"  said  our  guide.  "But  I  am  hungry. 
Shall  we  eat?" 

At  first  it  seemed  that  we  would  not,  for  it  was  close 
to  midnight  and  even  the  small  cafes  were  dark.  But  at 
last  upon  a  side  street  we  found  a  wretched  little  hole 
frequented  by  cab-drivers.  Several  cabs  stood  at  the 
curb,  and  around  the  narrow  entrance  were  grouped  a 
dozen  women  and  girls  with  skirts  to  their  knees  and 
bright  colored  shawls  drawn  over  coarsely  painted  faces. 
Oberookoff  did  not  like  it,  but  we  pulled  the  poor  devil 
into  the  place  and  found  seats  at  one  of  the  bare  dirty 
tables.  Greasy  dishes  stood  about.  The  floor  was  wet 
and  filthy,  and  there  were  flies  innumerable  on  the  low 
ceiling  and  the  walls.  The  room  was  crowded  to  the 
doors  with  drivers,  workmen,  soldiers,  peasants,  drink 
ing  tea  and  eating  bread  and  villainous  sodden  cutlets. 
The  prostitutes  were  kept  outside  by  order  of  the  gov 
ernment,  but  a  number  of  big  peasant  women  were  here 
with  baskets  of  vegetables  at  their  feet.  Near  us  sat 
a  heavy  old  peasant  with  long  curly  hair  nearly  down 
to  his  shoulders,  a  filthy  sheepskin  over  his  back;  and 
over  in  one  corner  sat  a  man  with  a  withered  leg  and 
arm,  a  pale  lean  face  and  big  feverish  eyes.  He  was  in 
ragged,  working  clothes  with  a  soldier's  cap  on  the  back 
of  his  head.  At  a  table  crowded  close  to  ours  a  tall 
young  soldier  with  sandy  hair  was  smiling  at  two  others 
who  had  just  come  in  with  bags  on  their  shoulders. 

"From  the  front?"  he  asked  them. 

"Yes,"  said  a  short  dumpy  one.  "I  had  the  rheumatics 
in  my  back — such  pains  as  would  have  wrung  groans 
from  a  horse.  For  three  years  in  all  kinds  of  weather 


BLIND  311 

I  did  nothing  but  shoot  and  throw  bombs — and  each 
bomb  cost  as  much  as  a  sheep — and  I  killed  nobody, 
brother.    Now  I  am  going  back  to  my  village  to  get  my 
share  of  the  new  land."   And  they  talked  about  the  land 
for  awhile.   "I  am  glad  to  get  out  of  the  army/*  he  con 
tinued  presently.    "Such   shouts  and  kicks — you  must 
walk  just  so — every  move  of  leg  or  arm.   And  I  got  so 
used  to  that — it  was  hard,  when  the  revolution  came, 
to  keep  down  my  hand  from  saluting  my  captain — to  let 
him  understand  I  am  free,"  he  added  with  a  dignified 
frown.    "Before  the  revolution,  my  captain  used  to  taF 
to  me  and  I  used  to  say,  'Just  so-'    But  now  he  says 
am  a  free  man — and  he  smiles  at  me,  the  devil !     An 
what  did  he  do  for  his  country?     All  through  the  wa 
he  slept  every  night  with  a  beautiful  Red  Cross  sister- 
while  I  was  leading  all  the  time  the  hard  life  of 
soldier!    Yet  now  he  only  smiles  at  me,  and  asks  s: 
many  questions  it  is  hard  to  think  them  out.    'You  mus; 
not  reply,  Just  so/  he  says,  'for  now  you  are  a  free  maix 
my  boy,  and  all  Russia  is  in  your  hands/    And  he  put: 
many  things  together  into  my  head  in  such  a  way,  it  K 
hard  for  me  to  think  at  all.    And  then  he  smiles,  the 
villain!     And  one  night  when  he  was  smiling  so,  he 
puts  his  pistol  to  his  head — and  crack! — he  gives  his 
soul  to  God !" 

Such  bits  of  talk  were  translated  for  me  by  the  quiz 
zical  little  man  at  my  side.  How  much  was  true,  I  could 
not  tell.  The  crowd  as  a  whole  was  quiet  enough,  but 
underneath  the  hubbub  of  rough  low  voices  all  about  I 
could  feel  a  pent-up  tensity.  A  spruce  young  sergeant 
with  black  mustache  and  clear  kindly  smiling  eyes  kept 
walking  about  among  the  tables.  He  was  here  to  keep 
order,  I  learned.  All  at  once  a  dispute  arose  close  to  the 
door.  A  soldier  was  trying  to  bring  in  one  of  the  prosti 
tutes  from  the  street ;  and  the  proprietor  of  the  place  was 
excitedly  protesting.  A  dozen  men  jumped  to  their  feet 


312  BLIND 

and  surrounded  the  trio,  laughing-  and  shouting.  Then 
the  young  sergeant  pushed  into  the  group,  laid  his  hand 
on  the  newcomer's  shoulder  and  smiled,  said  a  few 
friendly  words  and  got  the  girl  out  There  was  quiet 
again  in  the  restaurant.  But  a  few  minutes  later  the 
same  fat  painted  red-faced  girl  came  in  with  a  jaunty 
young  officer  who,  when  the  sergeant  came  up  to  them, 
gave  him  a  haughty  stare  and  said, 

"You  need  not  tell  me  of  the  law.  I  am  a  Russian 
officer.  I  take  full  responsibility." 

With  a  troubled  hesitating  look  the  young  sergeant  let 
him  by;  and  he  took  the  girl  to  a  corner  table,  where  iri 
a  few  moments  they  were  joined  by  two  young  ensigns. 
Then  a  middle-aged  workman  in  a  black  suit  growled  to 
his  companions: 

"Fine  way  to  help  the  revolution.  There  was  never  a 
time  when  every  man  should  obey  the  law  as  he  should 
now!" 

"It's  all  wrong!"  said  a  soldier  loudly.  "He  says  he 
is  an  officer  and  can  do  anything  he  likes !  But  he  can't, 
by  God — we're  as  good  as  he  is!  The  law  is  for  all!" 
Up  came  the  sergeant. 

"Never  mind,  boys.     Now  never  mind " 

"Why  never  mind?  Why  should  we  obey?  Why  is 
this  law  needed  anyhow?" 

"To  stop  the  syphilis,  brother.  It  is  eating  up  the 
whole  army  here.  You  know  how  it  is." 

"Then  why  let  him  bring  in  a  girl?" 

"Wait,  wait — I  will  soon  get  them  out." 

But  a  moment  later  in  limped  the  tall  thin  workingman 
with  the  withered  leg  and  arm.  He,  too,  had  a  girl ;  and 
when  he  was  stopped,  his  pale  sick  face  went  suddenly 
red,  and  he  shouted  furiously, 

"If  they  can  do  it,  why  can't  I?" 

"Well,  tovarisch  (comrade),"  said  the  sergeant 
steadily,  "are  you  going  to  fight  me?" 


BLIND  313 

"No !    I  have  nothing  against  you !    Let  me  come  in !" 

"Not  with  the  girl."  The  sergeant  held  him  by  the 
arm.  "And  as  for  those  officers,  brother,  it  will  be  bad 
for  them  later  on,"  he  added  in  a  lower  tone. 

"Yes,  it  will  be  bad  for  them !"  the  tall  cripple  shouted 
in  a  high  tense  quivering  tone.  He  shook  his  fist  at  the 
ensigns.  "You  are  a  fine  dirty  crowd!"  he  screamed. 
"You  defended  the  Czar — and  now  the  whores!" 

The  young  officers  smiled,  tried  to  look  unconcerned 
— but  half  the  crowd  was  on  its  feet. 

"Kill  the  bloody  monarchists!" — "Let  them  obey  the 
law  like  us!"— "Throw  them  out!" — "They  wear  the 
red  badge  of  the  revolution  but  they  want  the  Czar  back, 
the  Czar!"— "Here,  boys,  grab  them!  Lend  a  hand!" 

Out  of  the  scuffle,  din  and  blows,  the  shouts  and 
shoves,  the  screams  of  a  girl,  a  dense  throng  surged 
toward  the  door.  And  the  three  young  ensigns,  red  with 
rage,  were  pushed  and  kicked  out  into  the  street — while 
after  them  a  workingman  and  a  stout  peasant  woman, 
who  had  the  painted  girl  between  them,  sent  her  with 
a  shove  from  the  man  and  a  resounding  slap  from  the 
woman. 

"Let's  go  out  and  kill  them,  boys!"  the  tall  cripple 
yelled,  brandishing  his  arm.  But  the  sergeant  managed 
to  quiet  him  down.  Soon  the  whole  crowd  had  sub 
sided,  chuckling  over  the  affair. 

"Let  us  go,"  said  OberookofT.  The  little  architect 
smiled  at  him  and  said  in  broken  English, 

"The  past — you  see? — those  officers.  The  present — 
the  young  sergeant.  The  future — the  man  with  the  sick 
arm." 

"You  are  wrong!"  Oberookoff  cried,  his  kindly  face 
all  quivering.  "The  real  Russia  is  not  in  a  hole  like 
this!  Even  here  you  see  how  kind  they  are  and  how 
they  obey  among  themselves  the  laws  of  the  revolution! 
They  are  children !  All  they  need  is  schools !  You  will 


314  BLIND 

see  when  we  go  to  the  country  how  the  peasants  love  the 
land.  And  there  they  are  shrewd — they  know  the  soil. 
They  are  not  stupid  cattle  but  wise  men !  Look  at  their 
proverbs  and  their  songs!  All  is  going  well,  my  friend 
— this  revolution  will  not  fail !  All  they  need  is  a  chance 
to  earn  their  bread — and  not  starve,  as  they  have  in  the 
past — and  schools  to  teach  their  children!" 

The  little  architect  laid  his  hand  on  OberookofFs  arm 
and  said, 

"I  hope  it  will  be  like  that,  brother." 
But  I  could  still  see  the  smile  in  his  eyes. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

1. 

THE  next  day  we  set  out  for  the  country  district  in 
which  Oberookoff  had  been  born.  We  left  the  city  early 
at  night.  It  was  raining,  and  under  the  wooden  shed 
that  covered  the  platform  by  our  train  arc  lights  at 
long  intervals  threw  yellow  glares  on  the  crowds  below. 
We  had  come  early  to  get  a  place,  and  having  piled  our 
bags  on  our  seats  we  came  out  again  on  the  platform. 
It  was  of  cement,  worn  deep  in  places,  and  it  oozed  with 
damp  and  mud.  There  was  a  train  on  either  side,  and 
the  platform  teemed  with  people.  Among  them  gleamed 
the  bayonets  of  the  soldier  station  guards.  There  were 
Cossacks  here  and  there,  and  a  group  of  Tartars  play 
ing  cards  on  a  packing  box.  One  of  them,  a  huge  squat 
soldier,  joked  in  a  hard  gutteral  voice.  A  bright-faced 
little  woman  sat  on  a  pile  of  bags  nearby.  She  was 
pregnant.  A  baby  lay  in  her  arms  and  two  small  girls 
lay  asleep  at  her  skirts  upon  the  muddy  pavement.  A 
bottle  of  milk  was  by  her  side,  and  a  small  chunk  of 
black  bread.  The  bottle  was.  empty.  They  had  been 
here  since  five  o'clock  in  the  morning,  she  said,  smiling 
up  at  us.  There  was  such  a  rush  for  every  train  that 
each  time  they  had  been  crowded  back.  Oberookoff 
went  to  the  open  windows  of  a  car  that  was  literally 
jammed  with  men,  women  and  children,  sitting  and 
standing.  No  chance  of  getting  her  in  through  the 
door;  but  he  made  an  appeal  on  her  behalf,  and  through 
an  open  window  the  two  little  girls,  the  baby,  the  bags, 
and  finally  the  small  mother  herself,  were  boosted  up 
into  the  mass  inside,  amid  much  laughter  and  kindly 

315 


316  BLIND 

advice.  "Easy  with  her — easy  boys!"  What  a  time 
for  a  woman  big  with  child! 

The  first  bell  had  clanged,  and  the  second;  and  now 
with  three  harsh  whangs  on  the  gong  the  train  moved 
out  with  screeching  wheels  amid  a  tumult  of  good-byes, 
with  its  heavy  load  of  humanity  bound  for  distant  cities, 
towns  and  little  villages — to  what  strange  stirring  scenes 
of  change  ? — some  to  go  down  in  the  chaos  ahead,  others 
to  survive  and  live  on  into  the  new  Russia.  I  think  of 
the  bright  little  woman  now,  and  I  wonder  if  her  child 
were  born? 

A  few  minutes  later,  we  took  our  places  on  our  train. 
The  people  in  this  stifling  car  were  a  cheerful  animated 
lot.  They  kept  calling,  laughing,  gesturing  to  friends 
below  the  windows,  and  passing  out  money  for  cigarettes 
or  small  kettles  to  be  filled  from  a  steaming  faucet 
nearby.  Many  were  drinking  tea  inside.  It  was  dark 
and  hot  in  here,  with  blue  clouds  of  tobacco  smoke;  but  I 
heard  the  twang  and  tinkle  of  a  balalaika  and  several 
voices  singing,  and  there  was  a  constant  hubbub  of  talk 
from  soldiers,  sailors,  peasants,  priests,  workingmen, 
shopkeepers.  From  the  narrow  berth  just  over  our  seat 
the  tousled  head  of  a  soldier  could  be  seen,  and  his 
snores  were  heard.  A  perfectly  enormous  man,  who  had 
been  an  artillery  officer,  was  joking  with  two  young 
Jewesses  in  our  double  seat  below.  A  woman  doctor,  in 
blue  silk  cloak  thrown  over  a  white  uniform,  soon  gayly 
entered  into  their  talk,  and  now  they  were  all  going  it 
hard — while  on  a  valise  in  the  aisle,  a  slim  youngster  of 
sixteen  in  a  blue  student  uniform  listened  with  dark  eager 
eyes.  They  talked  of  the  land  and  the  peasants  and  the 
failure  of  the  crops,  the  lack  of  food  in  the  cities,  the 
dearth  of  wool  and  cotton  goods,  the  graft  and  specula 
tion,  the  break-up  of  the  armies.  Dismal  news  at  every 
turn — yet  they  seemed  thoroughly  to  enjoy  this  gossip 


BLIND  317 

of    the    debacle.     The    stout    artillery    officer    was    so 
solemnly  ironical  and  his  jokes  were  appreciated  so. 

The  slim  young  student  in  the  aisle  still  smiled  as  he 
listened  to  the  talk,  but  there  was  a  worried  gleam  in 
his  eyes.  He  was  living  alone  on  his  country  estate  with 
his  mother  and  two  sisters,  he  said;  and  though  he 
joked  about  the  demands  the  peasants  were  making  on 
them  now,  plainly  he  felt  anxious,  this  only  man  in  a 
lonely  house,  with  a  revolution  surging  on.  He  was  rest 
less.  He  kept  going  from  group  to  group  along  the 
aisle,  listening  intently  and  with  that  same  unnatural 
smile  to  what  each  group  was  saying.  All  up  and  down 
the  dim  hot  car  the  grim  gossip  of  disaster  went  cheerily 
on  without  a  stop,  as  the  train  rushed  through  the  humid 
night,  between  dripping,  motionless  forests. 


2. 

About  midnight  we  left  our  train  at  a  desolate  little 
station  upon  the  outskirts  of  a  town,  and  in  a  dilapidated 
cab  we  were  driven  to  an  inn.  It  was  a  small  square 
building,  two  and  a  half  stories  high.  The  proprietor,  a 
black-haired  little  man,  led  us  up  steep  flights  of  stairs, 
his  candle  flaring  in  the  draught,  and  ushered  us  into  an 
attic  room  with  two  little  old  beds,  a  white  tile  stove 
and  three  rounded  deep-cut  windows.  Although  it  was 
midnight,  he  cheerfully  said  that  of  course  we  could  have 
supper;  and  in  a  few  minutes  a  stout  peasant  girl  came 
up  the  stairs  in  her  bare  feet,  with  a  tray  on  which  was 
a  bowl  of  soup,  fried  steak  and  potatoes,  cucumbers,  and 
a  generous  loaf  of  white  bread — the  first  I  had  seen 
for  many  weeks. 

"You  see?"  cried  Oberookoff,  beaming.  "We  are  in 
the  country!" 

The  proprietor  soon  followed  with  a  large  brass 
samovar;  and  after  we  had  eaten  he  drank  tea  and 


318  BLIND 

smoked  with  us,  and  settled  down  for  a  good  Russian 
talk.  Angrily  jerking  out  his  words,  he  complained  of 
the  high  prices,  graft  and  confusion  everywhere. 

"If  there  is  not  bloodshed  soon,  it  will  be  a  miracle!" 
he  said.  "The  peasants  have  their  fists  in  the  air.  You 
know  how  the  Russian  muzhik  is.  You  say,  'Do  this' — 
and  he  does  it.  But  always  if  he  sees  a  chance  he  will 
come  on  your  fields  at  night  and  mow  your  clover,  steal 
your  tools.  And  now  he  is  quite  drunk  with  his  chances. 
The  younger  peasants  and  soldiers  have  chosen  deputy 
devils  here — their  'Soviet/  they  call  it.  But  things  can 
not  go  on  like  this.  The  men  of  my  kind  in  every  town 
will  unite  all  over  Russia — and  there  will  be  a  monarchy ! 
Do  you  imagine  that  the  Czar  abdicated  of  his  free  will? 
No,  they  grabbed  him  by  the  nose  and  said,  'Sign  here  1' 
How  blind  he  was!  He  should  have  persuaded  the 
Allies  to  send  in  their  armies,  and  he  himself  should  have 
led  them  all  against  the  Germans.  This  for  a  show. 
But  to  the  Allies  he  should  have  whispered,  'My  throne 
is  shaking!  Help  me  with  troops  to  keep  order  here!' 

"We  are  not  fit  to  be  a  republic.  Look  at  all  these 
soldier  bums!  It  is  harvest  time!  Yet  here  they  loaf, 
while  the  crops  are  spoiled — and  we  who  must  suffer 
next  winter  say,  'Oh,  you  free  eaters!*  How  they  eat! 
Of  honest  work  they  know  nothing  whatever.  They 
shout  and  quarrel,  these  hooligans,  and  don't  even  know 
how  to  carry  out  the  wild  rules  of  their  own  revolution. 
Prices,  taxes,  orders,  laws — all  are  mere  words  and 
figures  that  buzz  in  their  stupid  heads  like  flies — till  they 
scratch  their  thick  skulls  and  seem  to  be  asking,  'Who 
are  all  these  little  birds  flying  around  in  my  poor  head?' 

"But  a  strong  man  will  come  in  Russia.  So  it  has 
always  been  in  the  past.  When  Ivan  the  Terrible  abdi 
cated,  the  Boyars  made  a  great  hurrah  and  went  on  a 
regular  spree.  But  the  next  day  he  said  to  them,  'So 
you  thought  I  had  gone,  you  devils!  May  fiends  with 


BLIND  319 

their  claws  scratch  the  souls  of  your  mothers!'  He  cut 
off  their  heads  and  put  them  on  spikes,  so  that  all  the 
people  could  understand.  And  so  it  will  be.  These 
bums  will  eat  and  loaf  and  shout  until  at  last  starvation 
comes — and  then  a  strong  man  will  arise  to  put  us  in  our 
places,  by  hunger  and  the  lash,  my  friend !" 

Throughout  this  angry  tirade,  poor  Oberookoff  again 
and  again  threw  into  his  interpretations  such  little  bits 
of  his  own  as  these :  "He  is  wrong  absolutely !" — "This 
is  not  true !"  And  when  our  host  had  left,  he  said,  "Wait 
till  we  get  to  the  country." 

"I  thought  we  were  already  there,"  I  remarked  malici 
ously. 

"This  the  country?"  he  said  with  contempt.  "No,  this 
is  nothing  but  a  town !  Tomorrow  we  shall  drive  twenty 
versts  out  into  the  real  Russia !" 

For  a  little  while  I  lay  in  the  dark  listening  to  the  occa* 
sional  voices  and  the  tramp  of  feet  below,  bursts  of 
laughter,  distant  cries,  and  men's  voices  singing.  Then 
I  heard  a  hard  clear  rattle.  It  stopped,  but  was  repeated 
— and  each  time  louder,  nearer.  I  asked  my  companion 
what  it  was,  and  he  answered  sleepily,  "The  watchman 
going  about  on  his  rounds."  Presently  it  died  away, 
that  thin  little  sound  which  stood  for  the  law  and  order 
of  generations  now  gone  by.  ...  All  Russia  waiting, 
drifting,  swept  along  on  an  ocean  tide.  ...  I  fell 
asleep. 


3. 

The  next  day  was  bright  and  sunny,  and  we  set  out 
to  find  two  men  to  whom  I  had  letters  of  introduction. 
One  of  them  was  a  liberal  prince  who  had  been  the  head 
of  the  Zemstvo  (district  legislature)  here;  the  other  was 
a  young  Bolshevik  who  belonged  to  the  local  Soviet.  It 
was  a  large  and  straggling  town,  with  cobbled  streets  and 
dwellings  of  brick  or  stout  brown  logs,  with  deep  little 


320  BLIND 

windows — the  frames  of  white  or  red  or  blue.  Every 
where  tramped  soldier  lads  with  dull  good-natured  faces, 
dirty  clotHes.  At  one  point  on  the  narrow  main  street, 
hundreds  of  them  were  standing  about  or  sitting  on  the 
curbs  in  rows,  or  crowding  up  to  the  open  windows  of 
a  big  log  school  house  listening  to  the  voices  that  came 
from  a  room  inside.  Here  was  the  local  Soviet.  I 
caught  but  a  glimpse  of  them  at  a  table.  One  was  pound 
ing  it  with  his  fist. 

"We  must  have  a  look  at  this,"  I  said. 

Over  the  kindly  features  of  my  interpreter,  guide  and 
friend,  there  spread  a  patient  abused  expression.  As  a 
lamb  to  the  slaughter  he  led  the  way  to  the  room  inside, 
;where  a  dozen  young  soldiers  and  peasants  sat  with  maps 
and  ledgers  in  which  they  were  entering  all  the  private 
estates  of  the  locality,  with  the  amount  of  woodland, 
swamps  and  cultivated  soil  in  each;  and  they  were  mak 
ing  lists  of  the  peasants  among  whom  all  was  to  be 
divided.  Some  were  arguing  angrily,  their  hot  hair 
soaked  and  matted  with  sweat.  A  sallow- featured 
shrewd  young  man  sat  listening,  smoking  a  cigarette. 
He  turned  out  to  be  my  Bolshevik.  Reading  my  letter 
quickly,  he  led  the  way  to  a  quieter  room;  and  into  my 
little  opening  speech  he  broke  with  an  impatient  smile. 

"I  don't  care  who  you  are,"  he  said.  "We  have  noth 
ing  to  hide.  Ask  your  questions."  He  was  a  Moscow 
workingman  who  had  been  born  in  a  village  nearby.  "I 
know  these  peasants  like  myself."  He  was  one  of 
thousands  sent  from  the  cities  to  organize  the  little 
towns.  "And  the  joke  of  it  is,  we  are  strong  enough 
to  make  our  old  employers  pay  us  wages  while  we  are 
here.  We  are  forcing  the  bourgeois  of  the  towns  to 
pay  to  destroy  the  bourgeois  of  the  country  districts," 
he  said.  It  was  high  time.  For  the  landowners  were 
using  the  priests  and  the  richer  peasants  to  strengthen 
their  party,  the  Kadets,  and  so  hold  back  the  revolution. 


BLIND  321 

He  was  here  to  head  that  off.  Already  they  had  turned 
the  landowners  out  of  the  local  Zemstvo  and  filled  it 
with  men  whom  they  could  trust.  And  now  the  real 
power  was  right  in  this  room. 

"There  are  two  big  jobs  to  put  through,"  he  said. 
"Get  peace  and  give  the  land  to  the  people.  Both  are 
easy,  the  peasants  want  both.  They  are  shouting  for 
peace  in  every  village;  and  they  want  land — and  they 
want  it  all.  And  that  is  just  what  the  landowners  won't 
give  them.  For  fifty  years  in  the  Zemstvos  these  gentle 
men  have  spouted  Humanity  and  Progress  here — 
reforms,  reforms!  But  the  one  reform  that  is  needed 
most  lis  that  they  should  give  up  their  land  to  the 
peasant — 'get  off  his  back',  as  Tolstoy  said.  In  many 
ways  he  was  an  old  fool,  but  there  at  least  he  spoke  the 
truth.  What  right  have  they  to  their  estates?  Did  they 
ever  sweat  to  till  the  soil?  So  now  we  are  going  to  take 
their  land  and  make  it  national  property,  and  lease  it  to 
the  peasants — the  rent  to  be  counted  into  their  taxes." 

While  Oberookoff,  glum  and  troubled,  translated  what 
had  been  said  to  me,  the  young  workingman  listened 
with  a  grim  smile. 

"How  long  are  you  here?"  he  asked;  and  when  I 
replied  that  I  wanted  a  look  at  the  big  estate  of  Prince 
Ivan  Petrovitch,  his  smile  broadened  and  he  said,  "By  all 
means  go  to  his  estate.  Let  him  tell  you  all  the  reforms 
he  has  made — and  then  look  at  his  peasants  in  their 
huts,  and  see  what  good  it  has  done  them."  He  added, 
"And  remember  besides  that  this  old  Prince  is  at  least 
an  honest  liberal.  There  are  others  in  this  district  who 
are  working  day  and  night  to  put  us  back  under  the 
Czar.  That  is  why  we  keep  troops  here  in  the  town." 

Abruptly  he  rose  and  went  back  to  his  work.  And 
Oberookoff,  quivering  with  righteous  indignation,  fol 
lowed  me  out  to  the  street. 

"Here  in  the  town  he  thinks  himself  strong — but  wait 


322  BLIND 

till  we  get  to  the  villages !    Twenty  versts  from  here  you 
will  find  that  they  never  even  heard  of  this  fellow !  Then 

you  will  see " 

"The  real  Russia,"  I  said.     "All  right,  Oberookoff, 
lead  the  way !" 


4. 

Ivan  Petrovitch  was  standing  in  front  of  the  small 
courthouse,  looking  absent-mindedly  at  the  soldiers 
down  the  street.  A  tall  massive  stoop-shouldered 
elderly  man  with  a  heavy  beard  and  spectacles,  in  an 
old  linen  duster  and  slouch  hat,  with  a  black  portfolio 
under  his  arm,  he  looked  to  me  more  like  an  old  fashioned 
professor  than  a  prince.  At  sight  of  OberookofT,  his 
kind  heavy  features  lighted  up  in  a  friendly  way.  He 
grasped  my  hand  and  in  broken  English  urged  me  to 
come  and  make  him  a  visit;  and  early  in  the  afternoon 
he  came  for  us  in  an  open  carriage,  a  low  creaking  little 
vehicle,  the  cushion  leather  worn  away  and  the  old  har 
ness  patched  with  rope.  The  two  rotund  little  ponies 
were  owned  by  the  peasant  driver.  The  Prince  had  sent 
his  own  horses  long  ago  out  to  the  front,  where  one  of 
his  sons  had  already  been  killed  and  two  others  had  not 
been  heard  from  in  months.  As  we  clattered  through 
the  cobbled  streets  we  passed  three  schools  and  a  hospital, 
built  largely  through  his  efforts.  But  now  his  work  was 
at  an  end.  The  crowds  of  young  peasant  soldiers  idly 
smoking  cigarettes  glanced  at  him  as  though  to  say. 

"Who  the  devil  is  this  old  gent?" 

We  had  a  long  drive  that  afternoon.  The  little  dirt 
road  climbed  low  wooded  hills  and  wound  down  through 
the  meadows  along  the  edge  of  a  small  quiet  river.  From 
time  to  time  Ivan  Petrovitch  pointed  to  seme  lovely  bit 
of  meadow,  hill  or  river  bend.  He  seemed  to  love  this 
country  well,  as  one  who  had  taken  thousands  of  such 
drives  by  day  or  night.  For  over  twenty  years,  he  said, 


BLIND  323 

he  had  stayed  here  through  the  winters.  His  Zemstvo 
work  had  kept  him  here,  but  he  did  not  talk  of  it  now. 
It  was  over.  Every  now  and  then  we  passed  a  peasant 
village,  two  lines  of  straggling  wretched  huts.  I  remem 
bered  the  words  of  the  young  Bolshevik : 

"Look  for  yourself  and  see  what  good  all  his  reforms 
have  done  them." 

Very  little,  it  appeared.  Of  the  peasants  we  passed,  a 
very  few  doffed  their  caps  and  smiled  a  greeting;  most 
of  them  looked  with  sullen  eyes.  And  as  in  Petrograd, 
so  here,  I  felt  the  heavy  heritage  the  Past  had  left  to 
these  critical  days.  There  had  been  so  much  oppression. 
By  a  small  creek,  he  pointed  out  a  great  pyramid  of 
boulders  some  forty  or  fifty  feet  in  height.  This  had 
been  an  ice  house. 

"You  see,"  he  said,   "in  the  days   of   serfs   Count 

B ,  who  owned  this  large  estate,  made  them  build 

such  nonsense  just  to  suit  his  idle  whim." 

And  now  he  and  his  kind  were  to  pay  for  such 
whims.  Reforms,  reforms — they  were  not  enough.  It 
was  land  the  peasants  wanted.  Yet  there  seemed  to  be 
such  an  abundance  of  land.  We  went  through  dark 
glorious  forests  of  pine  and  came  out  onto  great  land 
scapes  of  wide  rolling  meadows;  and  again  I  had  the 
feeling,  that  had  come  to  me  so  often  before,  of  the 
vastness  of  this  country — its  boundless  resources  barely 
scratched.  An  enormous  clumsy  barge,  pulled  by  nearly 
a  score  of  mules,  came  slowly  up  the  river;  and  this 
gave  Oberookoff  his  cue  for  a  talk  about  the  rivers  of 
Russia,  large  and  small,  innumerable. 

"They  are  our  friends,  these  rivers.  More  than  the 
roads  they  carry  our  freight.  We  don't  need  so  many 
ugly  railroads  as  in  America.  We  are  not  in  such  a 
hurry  here.  And  look  how  beautiful  it  is !"  He  pointed 
down  to  the  river.  "All  day  your  barge  goes  slowly  on, 
and  you  have  time  that  is  good  for  your  soul.  And  such 


824  BLIND 

power,  too,  as  we  have  in  these  rivers  for  electric  force 
some  day!  In  the  Ural  Mountains  and  down  in  the 
Caucasus  the  power  of  the  waters  is  a  mighty  thing  to 
see!  And  the  real  Russian  people,  too,  are  like  that. 
You  have  heard  too  many  ugly  lies.  There  is  a  deep 
power  in  their  souls!  I  tell  you  and  tell  you  they  only 
need  schools!" 

The  sun  was  setting  over  the  hills.  It  shone  clear  and 
bright  into  a  miserable  group  of  huts  through  which 
we  passed,  and  it  made  a  group  of  peasants  scowl  as 
they  watched  our  little  old  carriage  go  by.  We  plunged 
into  a  forest  then,  where  in  the  slowly  deepening  dusk 
the  tall  pines  and  lovely  birches  loomed  like  phantoms. 
Not  a  sound.  A  rabbit  scampered  from  the  road  and 
disappeared  in  the  shadows.  We  emerged  on  a  wide 
field,  and  upon  the  opposite  side  we  came  through  a 
little  park  to  the  home  of  Ivan  Petrovitch. 

It  was  a  large  white  house  of  wood,  with  a  square 
middle  section  two  stories  high,  slender  white  columns 
at  the  front  and  a  low  wing  on  either  side.  It  was  a 
beautiful  old  place.  Back  of  the  house  was  an  oval 
garden,  on  either  hand  were  tall  graceful  silver  birches, 
and  behind  from  a  low  wooded  bluff  you  looked  down 
across  the  river  to  a  rolling  meadow.  We  walked  along 
the  edge  of  the  bluff  under  the  pines  and  Siberian 
larches.  It  was  cool  and  silent  here,  peaceful  with  a 
mellow  beauty,  glimpses  down  across  the  stream.  Deep 
and  smooth,  with  barely  a  murmur,  it  swept  out  of  view 
in  a  lovely  bend.  I  saw  the  swirl  of  a  fish  down  there; 
and  later  I  spied  the  boys  of  the  family,  each  with  a  long 
fish-pole,  standing  on  a  sandy  point.  We  met  no  peas 
ants  on  our  walk,  but  the  benches  all  along  the  path  had 
been  thrown  into  the  water  below. 

"The  peasants  do  that.  By  day  they  are  friendly,  but 
at  night  they  come  and  throw  these  benches  down.  When 


BLIND  325 

we  put  them  back,  they  do  it  again,"  said  Ivan  Petro- 
vitch,  with  a  smile. 

We  retraced  our  steps  and  had  a  look  through  the 
gardens  and  the  stables  and  barns.  Of  the  seventy 
peasants  who  had  formerly  worked  the  estate,  only  eight 
were  left,  and  only  a  dozen  cattle  remained.  We  came 
on  an  old  nurse  out  there  with  a  wee  grandson  of  the 
Prince,  who  was  squealing  with  delight  over  a  litter  of 
black  and  white  puppies  and  a  small  Swiss  calf  in  the 
yard,  of  whom  the  pups  were  in  terror  and  kept  scam 
pering  for  their  lives.  Neither  the  war  nor  the  revolu 
tion  bothered  this  sturdy  little  boy  or  these  fascinated 
frantic  pups.  They  had  the  present  on  their  hands ! 

What  kind  of  a  future  would  it  be?  There  must  be 
deep  anxiety  here;  but  still  they  did  not  show  it,  this 
friendly  happy  family.  That  evening  at  supper  there 
was  no  meat,  but  dishes  heaped  with  vegetables,  huge 
mushrooms,  a  potato  salad,  plenty  of  fresh  butter  and 
cheese,  black  bread  and  jam.  The  big  brass  samovar 
hummed  and  glowed,  and  we  lingered  long  over  our 
tea,  smoking  many  cigarettes. 

The  mother  of  Ivan  Petrovitch  was  a  small  woman 
with  snow-white  hair,  a  fine  wrinkled  face  and  bright 
indomitable  eyes  that  reminded  me  of  Aunt  Amelia. 
His  wife  looked  younger  than  himself,  a  tall  dark  slender 
woman  with  a  friendly  and  appealing  smile.  And  there 
were  three  grown  daughters,  a  son-in-law,  a  large  stout 
uncle,  and  three  boys — the  youngest  a  little  lad  of  ten 
dressed  in  a  rough  patched  blouse  and  pants,  feet  bare, 
head  tousled,  hunger  enormous.  These  people  all  wore 
simple  old  clothes.  Two  of  the  daughters  served  the 
meal,  for  of  a  dozen  house  servants  nobody  but  the 
cook  remained.  The  daughters  washed  the  dishes,  swept 
the  rooms  and  helped  with  the  mending.  No  more 
clothes  to  be  had  in  the  town,  so  these  old  ones  must 


326  BLIND 

be  made  to  last.  Till  when  ?  Till  what  ?  No  one  spoke 
of  that.  They  took  it  all  as  a  great  lark.  Within  a 
brief  hour  these  friendly  people  made  me  feel  as  though 
I  had  known  them  a  long  time.  It  all  seemed  so  familiar 
here,  this  home  so  like  to  Seven  Pines.  Different?  Yes, 
in  a  hundred  ways.  But  these  were  my  kind  of  people. 
They  were  liberals,  and  deep  down  in  my  heart  I  damned 
the  hide-bound  despots  whose  sins  had  been  visited  on 
this  home. 

Now  they  talked  about  the  war.  They  were  eager  to 
hear  all  I  could  tell  of  American  preparations.  As  for 
Russia  ?  There  was  silence  then — a  low  growl  from  the 
stout  uncle — and  a  little  laugh  at  that.  This  uncle  was 
the  family  wit.  He  was  the  one  Tory  here,  and  his 
ironic  comments  brought  forth  laughter  from  the  rest. 
The  new  commissaire  of  police  in  the  town  was  a  com 
mon  convict,  he  declared,  who  had  served  ten  years 
for  burglary.  Now  this  chap  was  chief  of  police,  and 
this  was  entirely  proper  and  right.  For  socialism  was 
robbery,  and  therefore  socialist  police — he  stopped  with 
an  expressive  shrug.  The  others  had  more  liberal  views. 
They  maintained  that  the  only  hope  for  Russia  lay  in  a 
coalition  between  the  more  moderate  socialists  and  pro 
gressives  like  themselves.  But  meanwhile  in  the  town 
nearby  the  Bolsheviki  had  arrived,  and  their  proclama 
tions  were  eagerly  read,  while  those  distributed  by  the 
Prince  were  scowled  upon  and  thrown  away. 

"How  amazing!'*  said  the  fat  uncle.  ''One  might 
have  thought  that  these  wise  peasants  would  have  pre 
ferred  the  truth  to  the  lies !" 

He  spoke  of  estates  in  the  district  that  had  already 
been  attacked.  Two  or  three  had  been  burnt  down. 
Here  the  three  men  of  the  family  and  the  tall  slim  lad  of 
sixteen  all  slept  with  rifles  by  their  beds. 

For  the  two  little  boys  it  was  bedtime  now.  They 
came  around  the  table  and  raised  their  mother's  hand  to 


BLIND  327 

their  lips,  while  she  pressed  their  faces  for  a  moment 
against  her  own.  Then  they  went  to  their  grandmother 
and  to  their  three  sisters.  Their  older  brother  later  on 
went  through  the  same  simple  gallantry.  Still  the  talk 
continued.  At  last  affectionate  goodnights,  and  lighted 
candles  disappearing  down  the  hall  and  up  the  stairs. 
In  my  room  I  found  an  old  copy  in  French  of  Les  Trois 
Mousquctaires.  And  I  read  it  awhile,  till  the  deep  quiet 
drowsy  voice  of  the  forest  made  me  toss  it  aside. 

5. 

The  next  day  we  breakfasted  on  the  porch,  and  there 
was  much  joking  over  the  latest  bit  of  news  of  the  revo 
lution.  The  chicken  house  had  been  raided!  Only  five 
old  hens  were  left.  "What  shall  we  be  eating  a  month 
from  now?"  They  faced  it  in  a  genial  way — all  except 
the  stout  uncle.  Plainly  he  had  loved  his  meals,  and  he 
scowled  as  he  sipped  a  bitter  concoction  made  of  rye  and 
chicory.  "The  chicory,  too,  will  soon  be  gone!"  He 
detested  tea,  which  the  others  were  drinking.  Black 
bread,  butter,  cheese,  and  honey — the  simple  meal  was 
soon  at  an  end;  and  presently  Oberookoff  and  I  were 
left  with  Ivan  Petrovitch,  who  in  his  soft  heavy  voice 
talked  to  me  for  an  hour  or  two  about  "the  great  slow 
revolution"  which  in  Russia  had  already  been  going  on 
for  fifty  years,  under  the  lead  of  the  Zemstvos.  Schools, 
hospitals,  doctors,  midwives,  veterinary  surgeons  and 
agricultural  teachers — these  had  been  gradually  intro 
duced  through  the  slow  patient  efforts  of  liberal  noble 
men  like  himself.  But  the  war  and  the  revolution  had 
broken  the  whole  system  down. 

"Now  the  peasants  are  crying  for  land,"  he  said. 
"What  good  will  it  do  them?  They  do  not  even  cultivate 
the  land  which  they  already  possess.  Much  of  it  is  quite 
unused,  and  the  rest  is  tilled  by  little  ploughs  which  cut 
but  three  inches  into  the  soil.  What  they  need  is  not 


328  BLIND 

land  but  modern  ploughs,  model  farms  and  agricultural 
schools.  And  all  this  means  intelligence.  What  hope 
in  these  Bolsheviki  for  that  ?" 

He  took  me  over  the  estate.  The  huge  barns,  the 
stables,  the  dairy,  the  grist  mill  and  the  threshing  barn 
were  built  of  logs;  and  there  were  huts  for  the  laborers 
strangling  off  along  the  dark  uneven  edge  of  the  forest. 
And  I  had  an  impression  here  of  a  leisurely  helter-skelter 
growth,  like  that  of  a  southern  plantation  at  home,  all 
very  easy-going,  based  on  the  labor  first  of  serfs  and 
later  of  peasants  to  whom  were  paid  such  low  wages 
that  there  had  been  little  need  of  careful  planning — till 
now  all  at  once  that  labor  was  gone. 

We  came  out  on  a  great  clover  field,  warm  with 
patches  of  red  and  blue  flowers;  the  air  was  sweet  and 
fragrant,  and  bees  were  humming  on  every  hand.  It  had 
been  mowed  three  weeks  ago,  but  the  clover  was  already 
nearly  up  to  our  knees  again. 

"This  soil  was  no  richer  than  that  of  the  peasant  land 
nearby/'  said  our  host.  "But  it  has  been  plowed  deep 
for  many  years,  with  a  five  year  rotation  of  crops — while 
the  peasants  with  their  poor  little  ploughs  turn  a  furrow 
but  three  inches  deep,  and  plant  oats,  rye,  potatoes  or 
flax  until  the  soil  is  exhausted.  And  that  is  not  the  only 
trouble.  Look  how  their  land  is  divided." 

A  strange  looking  landscape  met  my  eyes.  A  wide 
rolling  field  about  a  mile  square  was  all  cut  up  in  long 
thin  strips  of  rye,  oats,  timothy,  flax  or  potatoes — 
striped  like  a  zebra,  gray,  yellow  and  brown.  Some 
strips  were  only  ten  feet  wide.  The  peasants  of  the  vil 
lage,  a  cluster  of  huts  not  far  away,  owned  this  land  in 
common  and  divided  it  up  among  themselves  for  a 
period  of  some  twenty  years.  Then  the  village  Mir 
(town  meeting)  after  days  of  excited  discussion  made  a 
re-division  according  to  the  changing  size  of  the  fami- 


BLIND  329 

lies.  To  each  family  was  given  several  small  plots  of 
land  or  strips  like  these,  often  a  mile  or  two  apart. 

"You  see  what  a  waste  this  means,"  he  said.  "Between 
each  strip  is  a  border  of  a  foot  or  two  in  width.  These 
borders  alone  waste  a  tenth  of  the  land.  And  besides, 
what  good  does  it  do  a  peasant  to  toil  day  and  night  on 
his  narrow  strip,  if  his  lazy  neighbor  lets  the  weeds  and 
thistles  grow?  Here  are  strips  that  have  been  neglected 
for  years — their  owners  have  died  or  moved  away,  but 
they  cannot  sell,  and  it  is  not  time  for  the  re-division 
by  the  Mir.  There  is  waste  in  the  plowing,  waste  in  the 
reaping,  wasted  labor  all  the  year  round.  And  now,  if 
they  do  seize  my  estate,  they  will  soon  with  a  terrific 
amount  of  shouted  discussion  divide  it  into  strips  like 
these,  and  back  it  will  go  to  a  primitive  state.  With  their 
wretched  ploughs  and  ancient  methods,  the  crops  of 
Russia  will  go  down  to  an  extent  that  will  mean  famine 
to  large  sections  of  Europe.  And  it  is  by  no  means 
improbable,"  he  said  very  quietly,  "that  this  is  going  to 
happen  soon — though  at  present  they  are  friendly." 

So  they  seemed  as  we  talked  to  them  in  the  village 
over  across  the  field.  All  greeted  us  pleasantly  enough, 
and  they  were  as  pleased  and  excited  as  children  when 
I  used  my  kodak  there.  An  old  peasant  showed  me  his 
stable  and  barn,  while  his  daughter  dressed  in  frantic 
haste  in  her  Sunday  clothes  for  a  picture,  and  then  at  the 
last  moment  ran  away  blushing  and  waving  her  hands. 
After  that  a  friendly  old  granny  took  me  into  her  hut 
nearby.  It  was  fairly  clean  but  stifling  hot,  and  it  stank 
from  the  stable  and  pigsty  built  right  onto  the  side  of 
the  hut.  In  the  kitchen  was  a  huge  stove  and  oven  of 
white  plaster;  and  above  it  was  a  bed  of  planks  on 
which  she  slept  in  winter.  In  the  hot  front  room  was  a 
baby  in  a  swinging  cradle  tightly  covered  with  a  cloth 
to  keep  out  the  swarms  of  flies.  In  one  corner  hung 
an  icon  with  a  tiny  lamp  burning  beneath  it.  Broad 


330  BLIND 

heavy  planks  were  upon  the  floor  and  bits  of  rag  carpet 
here  and  there,  and  an  old  carved  chair  that  I  much 
admired.  The  old  woman  beamed  upon  me  then;  and  the 
group  of  six  or  eight  women  and  girls  and  two  or  three 
men,  who  had  gathered  outside,  all  talked  and  joked  and 
laughed  with  their  Prince  as  amicably  as  though  there 
were  no  Great  Revolution,  no  chicken  house  raided  the 
night  before,  no  benches  thrown  down  into  the  river. 

"Look  at  their  faces — how  friendly  they  are,"  said 
Ivan  Petrovich,  smiling.  "Yet  every  night  they  drive 
their  cattle  onto  my  fields.  In  the  revolution  of  1905 
they  came  from  several  villages  in  a  great  noisy  crowd 
one  night  and  set  fire  to  one  of  my  barns.  I  came  out 
and  tried  to  stop  them,  but  not  one  would  come  to  my 
aid.  In  a  perfectly  friendly  fashion  they  said  to  me, 
'No,  Ivan  Petrovitch,  this  is  now  the  revolution  and  we 
must  burn  your  barns  and  your  home/  One  old  peasant 
sighed  very  deeply  and  said,  'It  is  the  will  of  God/  They 
began  to  pull  furniture  from  my  house  in  order  to  throw 
it  into  the  flames.  My  sons  and  I  ran  for  our  guns,  and 
so  we  managed  to  save  the  house.  ....  Soon  they  may 
try  the  same  thing  again.  .  .  .  They  are  children." 

Still  they  smiled  at  him. 

"They  won't  work  for  me.  They  won't  even  sell  me 
the  eggs  of  the  hens  they  have  stolen." 

Humbly  one  of  the  men  then  asked  if  he  might  borrow 
the  Prince's  cart  to  haul  some  lumber  to  the  mill. 

"Of  course,"  said  the  Prince;  and  turning  to  me,  "God 
knows  if  I  shall  get  it  back." 

All  looked  curiously  at  me. 

"Ivan  Petrovitch,"  said  an  old  woman,  "why  did  you 
bring  an  enemy  here  ?" 

"He  is  not  an  enemy.  I  told  you  he  is  an  American, 
and  his  country  is  now  in  the  war." 

"But  are  they  not  on  the  German  side?"  one  of  the 
men  asked  quietly.  To  the  Prince's  explanation  they 
listened  with  deep  interest. 


BLIND  331 

"The  Americans,"  he  ended,  "are  going  to  send  over 
three  million  soldiers  soon  to  France." 

"They  are  going  to,"  said  a  peasant  sagely.  "Then 
they  are  not  yet  our  Allies.  For  who  knows  when  they 
will  get  their  men  over?"  He  sighed,  "  'While  the  sun 
is  getting  ready  to  rise,  the  dew  will  eat  away  our  eyes'." 
And  when  the  Prince  went  on  to  tell  how  hard  the  Allies 
were  fighting  in  France,  while  Russians  were  disgracing 
their  country,  "Well,  let  them  fight,"  sighed  the  peasant. 
"We  are  tired  out  with  this  war."  Instantly  there  came 
murmurs  of  agreement  from  the  women.  One  of  them 
said,  "Now  for  so  many  years  we  have  had  to  do  all  the 
work  on  our  fields.  So  the  crops  are  bad  and  we  shall 
starve  if  our  men  do  not  come  back  to  us." 

"But  they  are  back !  They  have  left  the  front  already 
by  millions!  Yet  they  sit  idle  in  the  town!  And  soon 
their  Soviet,"  said  the  Prince,  "will  come  and  take  away 
your  grain !" 

At  this  they  all  looked  at  him  with  shrewd  cunning  in 
their  faces. 

"Oh  my  darling,"  said  the  old  granny  softly,  "I  have 
so  little  grain  left  in  my  barn — and  so  many  little  brats 
of  grandchildren  have  been  left  with  me — and  no  help 
from  anyone.  I  must  watch  and  hide  it  all  way.  God's 
will  be  done."  And  she  crossed  herself. 

He  spoke  to  them  again  of  the  war.  Soon  the  Ger 
mans  would  march  into  Russia,  seize  control  of  the  gov 
ernment  and  then  lay  a  heavy  tax  on  every  peasant  in 
the  land.  "Where  you  have  paid  fifty  roubles,  you  will 
pay  hundreds,"  he  declared.  The  peasants  looked  at  him 
cunningly. 

"Yes?"  said  one  of  them  sadly.  "Oh,  how  hard  for 
us  that  would  be." 


6. 

Presently  we  left  them  and  started  for  OberookofFs 
home  in  a  village  three  miles  down  the  river.     On  the 


332  BLIND 

way  we  stopped  at  a  grist  mill  to  see  the  notorious  sor 
cerer  there.  The  mill  stood  on  a  high  river  bank,  with 
a  yawning  gravel  pit  close  by — in  which  at  night,  the 
people  said,  he  communed  with  the  powers  of  darkness. 
A  shaggy  old  man,  stout  as  a  bull,  with  deep-set  little 
shrewd  blue  eyes — to  me  he  looked  far  from  a  mystic. 
Proudly  he  showed  me  into  his  mill ;  and  as  in  that  dark 
dusty  place  I  listened  to  the  swish  and  whine  of  the  big 
stone  as  it  ground  the  rye,  I  could  feel  his  eyes  eagerly 
fixed  on  mine.  He  could  barely  wait  to  show  me  the 
new  turbine  he  had  bought  to  replace  the  clumsy  old 
water  wheel. 

"See  how  smoothly  it  goes,"  he  said  fondly.  "As 
though  all  the  blessings  of  God  were  upon  it." 

A  practical  old  sorcerer!  For  over  ten  years,  in  spite 
of  the  law  forbidding  his  use  of  the  water  here,  he  had 
kept  open  his  little  canal — partly  through  bribes  to  the 
local  police,  still  more  because  no  peasants  could  be 
induced  to  take  the  job  of  closing  up  his  small  canal 
and  so  incurring  his  wizard  wrath. 

"He  has  real  hypnotic  power,"  said  Ivan  Petrovitch, 
"and  he  employs  it  just  enough,  upon  the  peasants  when 
they  are  sick,  to  keep  them  all  in  awe  of  him.  I  have 
seen  him  stop  a  flow  of  blood  simply  by  hypnotic  force. 
But  his  only  real  passion  is  for  his  mill — to  him  the 
whole  war  and  the  revolution  are  nothing  at  all  com 
pared  to  this.  And  the  future  may  show  that  he  is  right. 
For  in  the  months  that  are  coming,  he  who  can  keep 
that  going,  will  be  the  real  wizard  in  our  land,"  said  the 
Prince,  with  his  large  kind  spectacled  eyes  fixed  on  the 
little  torrent  of  meal  that  kept  gushing  out  of  the  mill. 

We  walked  on  down  the  river,  and  at  a  spot  where  the 
high  banks  were  muddy  and  trampled  by  cattle  we  came 
to  the  village  in  which  Oberookoff  lived — a  row  of  log 
dwellings,  with  stables  and  barns  clustering  behind  them. 
There  were  two  white  stucco  buildings — one,  the  church. 


BLIND  333 

with  its  cupola  dome  of  green  and  gold;  the  other, 
OberookofFs  school.  The  rows  of  desks  were  empty, 
for  this  was  vacation  time.  Here,  since  he  was  wounded 
in  1915,  with  his  mother  and  his  sister  he  had  taught 
the  boys  and  girls  of  this  and  three  other  villages — but 
of  what  he  said  about  his  work  I  have  no  recollection. 
So  much  more  strong  and  vivid  is  my  memory  of  his 
mother's  face  as  she  talked  to  me  in  their  home  nearby 
— a  large  cabin  of  two  stories,  the  upper  floor  of  white 
plaster,  the  lower  one  of  smooth  brown  logs.  The  small 
living-room,  clean  but  disorderly,  had  a  personal  and 
homelike  air,  with  the  invariable  big  white  stove,  an  icon 
in  one  corner,  a  few  pictures  on  the  wall — including  one 
of  Seven  Pines — geranium  plants  in  the  deepcut  win 
dows,  a  tall  cabinet  filled  with  dishes  and  cups,  a  lamp 
on  a  low  table  and  some  book-shelves  by  the  wall.  It 
had  been  her  home  for  twenty  years. 

Born  on  a  small  estate  nearby,  which  under  the  care 
less  management  of  her  father  had  dwindled  away  until 
even  the  house  was  gone,  she  had  married  a  school 
teacher  and  in  various  villages  they  had  made  the  hard 
fight  of  the  first  pioneers  in  the  work  of  educating  the 
peasants.  Her  husband  had  been  exiled  and  had  died  in 
Siberia.  She  had  carried  on  their  work  alone,  until 
twenty  years  ago  with  her  daughter  she  had  come  back 
to  her  birthplace  here.  All  this  I  had  heard  many  times 
from  her  son,  who  idolized  his  mother.  I  had  been 
eager  to  meet  her — nor  was  I  disappointed  now.  A 
brown  wrinkled  woman  in  gray  cotton  dress,  at  seventy 
odd  she  still  looked  strong,  and  she  showed  in  her  large 
black  eyes  a  force  that  held  me  spellbound  as  she  talked 
Her  daughter  was  away  at  present,  working  in  a  neigh 
boring  town.  With  her  three  little  grandchildren  she 
welcomed  us  into  the  room;  and  at  first  she  had  very 
little  to  say;  but  when  the  Prince  had  left  us  to  see  to 
some  work  on  his  estate,  in  response  to  questions  from 


334  BLIND 

her  son  she  began  to  tell  of  her  teacher's  life.  And  into 
the  rosy  picture  Oberookoff  had  given  me  of  Russian 
education  she  broke  with  the  realities  of  a  teaching  life 
of  fifty  years. 

"Most  of  our  country  teachers  were  not  fit  to  teach  at 
all.  It  was  as  though  the  Government  felt  that  any 
teacher  was  good  enough  for  mere  peasants*  children," 
she  said,  with  a  quiet  bitterness.  "A  teacher  for  a  vil 
lage  school  should  have  such  a  wide  practical  training 
that  he  can  answer  all  the  questions  as  to  their  daily 
work  and  life  which  the  peasants  here  keep  asking.  He 
should  show  such  a  knowledge  of  farming  that  the  peas 
ants  soon  would  say,  'Here  is  no  mere  man  of  books 
but  the  wisest  peasant  of  us  all.'  But  in  Russia  it  has 
not  been  so.  There  have  been  splendid  exceptions,  of 
course — and  in  all  our  land  there  have  been  no  more 
devoted  idealists  than  our  country  teachers.  But  their 
position,  bad  at  the  start,  became  almost  unendurable. 
They  soon  won  the  peasants'  contempt.  These  ineffec 
tual  men  and  women,  who  knew  nothing  of  practical 
work  and  could  only  teach  children  out  of  books,  were 
met  by  scowls  and  grins  of  derision. 

"  'What's  the  good  of  this?'  the  peasants  asked.  'And 
we  must  pay  for  it  out  of  our  taxes!' 

"They  did  all  they  could  to  keep  salaries  down.  The 
teacher  was  lodged  in  some  peasant's  hut,  a  filthy  place 
to  live  in.  For  days  she  would  get  almost  nothing  to 
eat. .  What  was  the  good,  they  argued,  of  keeping  such 
a  fool  alive?  They  did  not  like  her  to  laugh  or  joke. 
When  she  did,  some  peasant  would  often  growl,  'It  is 
not  her  business  to  be  so  gay !  Let  her  earn  this  salary 
we  pay!'  And  many  older  peasants  said,  'See  what 
comes  of  taking  our  children  away  from  the  priest.  In 
his  school,  though  he  taught  nothing  useful,  at  least  he 
made  them  fear  God  and  the  Saints,  and  he  saved  their 
souls — while  now,  with  this  new  weak  schooling,  off  go 


BLIND  335 

the  boys  and  girls  to  the  towns,  and  the  Devil  creeps 
deep  into  them  there !' 

"So  these  teachers  struggled  on.  Many  of  us  took 
pupil  boarders,  children  from  other  villages  too  small 
to  walk  in  the  winter  storms.  They  went  home  on  Sun 
days  for  a  supply  of  bread  and  uncooked  vegetables;  and 
these  they  brought  back  to  the  teacher,  who  often  had  to 
cook  for  them  and  wash  their  filthy  clothes  as  well.  All 
together  they  crowded  into  a  peasant's  hut,  on  top  of  the 
family,  chickens  and  pigs.  Often  in  a  winter's  storm  or 
when  a  pack  of  wolves  was  about,  she  would  have  older 
children,  too — a  dozen  or  more — upon  her  hands.  All 
this  was  hard — it  was  very  hard.  Yet  in  my  own  case 
I  was  amply  rewarded  by  seeing  the  real  development 
these  little  boarder  pupils  made  when  I  had  them  day 
and  night.  I  taught  the  girls  to  cook  and  sew,  and  I 
taught  the  boys  as  much  as  I  could  of  farming  and  the 
care  of  live-stock  and  a  little  carpentry. 

"These  are  the  things  they  need  to  know.  For  there 
is  a  tremendous  power  here  and  a  deep  beauty  in  this 
life.  These  peasants  seem  to  be  stubborn  and  hard  and 
very  dark  with  ignorance;  yet  out  of  them  come  wise 
shrewd  proverbs,  fables  and  miraculous  legends  that 
show  what  a  treasure-house  of  wisdom  and  imagination 
is  within  their  shaggy  heads.  And  out  of  a  filthy  little 
hut  comes  a  piece  of  lace  or  embroidery  that  shows  what 
the  peasant  woman  could  do,  if  her  life  from  dawn  to 
darkness  were  not  weighed  down  by  dirt  and  toil.  It  is 
not  book  learning  they  need.  We  must  build  on  real  foun 
dations,  go  straight  to  their  real  interests  and  teach  them 
what  they  need  to  know  to  escape  from  all  this  filth  and 
toil. 

"Ivan  Petrovitch,"  she  went  on,  "is  a  kind  and  very 
liberal  man.  But  like  many  others  in  charge  of  the 
Zemstvos,  he  was  not  very  practical.  Those  liberal  land 
owners  lacked  force.  Most  of  them  have  managed  their 


336  BLIND 

own  estates  so  badly  that  half  their  fields  and  forests 
have  been  sold  to  pay  their  debts.  And  now  the  peas 
ants  will  seize  the  rest,  and  there  will  be  great  confusion 
here,"  said  the  stern  old  woman  quietly,  "till  at  last 
some  way  is  found  out  of  it  all.  In  the  meantime  my 
daughter  and  I  will  have  her  three  little  children  to 
keep  alive.  My  son  had  better  be  with  us  this  autumn. 
Perhaps  they  will  let  us  open  the  school.  And,  if  we  can 
manage  it,  I  shall  take  back  the  nine  little  boarders  we 
had  last  year.  For  life  will  be  hard  for  them  in  their 
huts. 

"Now  all  is  moving  quickly  back  to  the  older  days," 
she  ended.  "For  years  there  has  been  no  spinning  here — 
they  went  to  buy  their  clothes  in  the  town.  But  every 
old  granny  is  now  getting  ready  her  spinning  wheel  in 
every  hut.  They  will  make  their  own  clothes  and  shoes 
this  year,  and  hide  their  wool  and  their  rye  in  the  ground. 
The  village  will  draw  into  its  shell  till  the  cities  come 
to  their  senses." 

She  left  us  to  see  to  some  work  in  the  house. 

"You  see  what  a  woman  she  is,"  said  OberookofT 
proudly.  And  looking  at  him  I  realized  whence  had 
come  his  passion  for  schools. 


7. 

I  lunched  with  them,  and  after  that  we  visited  several 
huts  in  the  village.  Then,  as  with  my  companion  I  sat 
on  the  high  river  bank,  a  voice  hailed  us  from  below.  It 
was  the  brother  of  Ivan  Petrovitch,  the  stout  uncle  of 
the  night  before.  He  had  come  for  me  in  a  skiff,  to 
propose  that  we  go  fishing.  It  was  a  soft  fragrant  after 
noon.  As  I  sat  at  the  oars  and  let  our  boat  drift  slowly 
down  the  river,  my  stout  companion  casting  now  and 
then  from  side  to  side,  I  watched  the  life  along  the 
banks.  On  the  edge  of  a  dark  forest  of  pines,  a  gnarled 
shaggy  old  man  and  a  red-headed  boy  were  cutting  wood. 


BLIND  337 

We  drifted  slowly  around  a  bend  and  came  on  a  steep 
little  meadow.  A  woman  was  plowing  with  one  little 
horse,  urging  him  on  up  the  slope  with  a  shrill,  monoto 
nous  cry,  her  bare  feet  sinking  deep  in  the  furrows — 
while  a  little  girl  nearby  was  throwing  clods  of  earth  into 
the  stream  to  see  them  splash.  On  and  on  we  drifted. 
We  met  fishers  in  old  boats  or  ashore.  What  numberless 
men  and  women  had  passed  along  this  river,  I  thought, 
by  day  and  night,  by  skiff  and  barge  and  by  rough 
sledges  on  the  ice.  For  generations  this  small  stream 
had  been  a  highway  of  human  life,  with  its  labor,  dreams 
and  prayers,  its  priests  and  wandering  "holy  men,"  its 
tramps  and  its  philosophers,  its  bargemen  and  its 
peddlers,  its  doctors  and  its  sorcerers,  all  bent 
on  various  errands.  What  real  change  would 
there  be  in  it  all?  The  Great  Revolution  dwindled 
here  before  the  vast  mysterious  force  of  the  working, 
living,  dreaming,  of  over  a  hundred  million  people  of 
the  villages —  this  life  that  flowed  on  smooth  and  deep, 
like  the  dark  whispering  water. 

A  loud  grunt  from  the  fat  uncle.  His  long  rod  was 
bent  double  now,  and  his  line  cut  the  water  with  a  swish. 
Rapidly  I  rowed  the  boat  into  the  middle  of  the  stream, 
away  from  dangerous  weeds  and  snags.  He  grunted 
his  approval;  and  after  playing  his  fish  for  a  time,  at 
last  he  heaved  him  into  the  boat — a  big  glistening  yellow 
pike.  And  then  my  stout  companion,  this  Prince  of  Old 
Russia,  this  gloomy  man  who  scowled  on  the  revolu 
tion,  mopped  his  red  perspiring  brow  with  a  look  of 
placid  pride,  and  by  another  grunt  and  gesture  indicated 
a  small  sand  beach.  We  landed  there.  He  began  to 
undress.  Promptly  and  gladly  I  did  the  same ;  and  soon 
in  the  cool  soft  water  we  were  swimming  about  with 
deep  content.  How  far  away  from  Petrograd!  Little 
fish  nibbled  at  my  toes. 

But  this  peaceful  mood  of  mine  was  soon  to  be  pro- 


338  BLIND 

foundly  changed.  For  we  finished  our  swim  and  started 
home;  and  now,  as  the  slow  minutes  dragged,  all  my 
friendly  feeling  for  my  huge  fellow  fisherman  changed 
to  one  of  keen  dislike  and  deepening  indignation.  For 
there  he  sat,  an  enormous  lump  sinking  the  stern  deep 
into  the  water — while  I,  grown  doubly  lank  and  lean 
from  the  wretched  meals  in  Petrograd,  rowed  him  slowly 
up  the  stream.  What  a  current!  What  a  load!  Every 
stroke  was  a  back-breaking  heave !  And  an  hour  passed 
and  the  dusk  set  in,  and  my  back  was  one  long  ache  and 
throb — and  I  cursed  him,  the  damned  parasite!  Why 
couldn't  he  take  his  turn  at  the  oars?  "So  this  is  how 
the  peasant  feels!"  I  was  a  Bolshevik  that  night;  and 
as  I  heaved  and  bent  and  swore,  I  grew  steadily  Bolshe- 
vikier! 

But  supper  that  evening  at  nine  o'clock  dispelled  my 
aches  and  angry  gloom.  And  later,  in  a  restful  room 
with  a  piano  at  one  end  and  two  tall  candles  burning 
there,  one  of  the  grown  daughters  who  had  a  rich  sympa 
thetic  contralto  voice  sang  many  old  songs  of  Russia; 
while  at  the  piano,  eyes  shining  in  the  candle-light,  her 
grandmother  played  the  accompaniments.  And  these 
old  songs — from  the  forests  and  fields  and  from  the 
Mother  Volga — she  seemed  to  know  them  all  so  well. 
The  others  in  the  family  sat  listening  as  peacefully  as 
though  there  were  no  rifles  stacked  behind  the 'entrance 
door,  no  excited  multitudes  in  stifling  halls  in  Petro 
grad,  no  rebellious  mob  of  soldiers  in  the  district  town 
nearby,  no  groups  of  stolid  peasants  talking  in  low  voices 
outside  the  door  of  some  log  hut  in  the  village  less  than 
a  mile  away. 

I  recalled  what  the  young  Bolshevik  had  said  to  me 
the  day  before.  How  much  good  had  Ivan  Petrovitch 
done  the  peasants  by  his  reforms?  And  few  land 
owners  in  the  past  had  been  as  liberal  as  he.  There  had 
been  serfdom,  heavy  toil,  the  overseer,  the  jail,  the 


BLIND  33$ 

knout.  And  so  now,  for  a  time  at  least,  there  was  to 
be  little  place  or  chance  for  kindly  liberal  people  like 
these.  Their  faces  are  dim  in  my  memory — dim  as  in 
the  candle  glow.  For  as  I  sit  here  in  this  room  and  look 
back,  the  faces  of  workmen  and  peasants  keep  rising  up 
before  my  eyes — hard,  strong  and  clear  in  the  glare  of 
the  day. 


8. 

I  remember  the  night  in  Petrograd  when  OberookofF 
came  to  the  train  to  bid  me  good-by.  With  a  good  deal 
of  trouble  I  had  secured  a  berth  on  the  Trans-Siberian. 
On  the  wet  dirty  platform  was  a  dense  throng  of  peo 
ple,  part  of  the  panicky  multitude  leaving  the  city  by 
every  train;  for  this  was  only  a  little  before  the  Bol- 
sheviki  seized  control.  As  our  express  moved  slowly  out, 
I  caught  a  last  glimpse  of  my  friend.  With  a  forlorn 
affectionate  smile  he  waved  his  hand,  then  turned  away 
and  was  lost  in  the  confusion. 

'The  village  will  draw  into  its  shell  till  the  cities 
come  to  their  senses." 

I  have  not  heard  from  him  since  that  night;  but  often 
I  can  feel  him  here,  watching  anxiously  my  work  to  see 
that  I  don't  forget  the  schools. 

The  long  journey  eastward  is  dim  and  unreal  as  a 
dream  to  me  now.  At  first  fearfully  tired,  I  slept  in 
long  stretches  or  sat  for  hours  at  the  window,  my  mind 
a  blank,  staring  out  on  the  autumn  landscape.  All  the 
confusion  and  the  din  and  the  fever  of  change  was  left 
behind.  Deep  silent  forests,  rolling  meadows,  autumn 
colors,  autumn  leaves  upon  the  ground  and  the  sweet 
smell  of  burning  wood.  Stout  log  huts  and  stolid  faces. 
Men  and  women  plowing,  chopping,  driving  carts  or 
trudging  slowly  with  loads  on  their  shoulders — stopping 
to  stare  at  us  as  we  passed.  Most  of  the  people  of  Rus 
sia,  and  all  the  peasants  of  Europe,  I  thought,  were  folk 


340  BLIND 

like  these,  with  lives  hard,  quiet,  deep  and  slow.  Such 
people  might  riot  and  burn  and  kill,  but  for  only  a  little 
moment  in  time.  Then  again  the  deep  sure  pull  of  daily 
habits  centuries  old  would  draw  them  back,  and  their 
hard  qu'et  lives  would  go  on  very  much  as  before. 

For  changes  that  look  tremendous  in  printed  procla 
mations  and  laws  grow  small  in  these  vast  tides  of  life. 
Their  significance  melts  away,  as  their  effects  for  weal 
or  woe  are  fused  in  the  prodigious  whole.  The  ills  they 
cure  are  soon  forgotten,  and  the  improvements  they 
effect  are  taken  as  a  matter  of  course.  Small  trans 
formations  here  and  there,  new  gleams  and  glimmers  of 
vision,  new  pleasures  and  worries,  quarrels  and  schemes. 
But  the  day  from  sunrise  until  dark  would  see  little  dif 
ference  here,  I  thought.  For  all  this  would  be  slow — 
only  a  part  of  the  Great  Slow  Revolution  which,  as  the 
little  architect  said,  had  already  taken  a  hundred  years 
and  would  doubtless  fill  a  century  more.  The  present 
•upheaval  would  be  brief.  Then  back  to  some  order, 
both  old  and  new,  which  would  meet  the  desires  at  least 
in  a  measure  of  the  stolid  millions  like'  these.  God  grant 
the  world  would  have  moved  on  a  peg  when  that  season 
of  quiet  came  again. 


CHAPTER   XVII 

1. 

I  REACHED  home  in  the  fall  of  1917.  The  following 
June  I  left  for  France.  Of  the  months  intervening,  my 
memories  are  uneven — a  few  of  them  clear  and  dis 
tinct,  the  others  already  dim  and  unreal.  This  is  partly 
due,  I  am  told,  to  what  happened  to  me  later  on;  but 
it  is  due  still  more,  I  think,  to  the  fact  that  I  had  seen 
so  much  of  war  and  revolution  that  my  mind  was  packed 
and  jammed  and  could  take  in  little  more.  I  felt  the 
whole  prodigious  struggle  speeding  to  a  climax  now, 
with  bloody  death  and  pestilence  and  famine  spreading 
far  and  wide,  and  deep  passions  of  revolt — the  whole 
world  groaning  with  it  all. 

But  over  here  it  was  not  so.  For  my  trip  across  this 
continent  gave  me  glimpses  of  a  nation  fresh  and  only 
beginning  to  feel  the  seemingly  boundless  powers  that 
came  with  the  "get  together"  idea.  From  a  Russia  gone 
half  mad  with  its  new  dreams  and  liberties,  I  came  home 
to  a  swiftly  tightening  order  of  things  in  my  native  land. 
Like  the  German  discipline?  No — a  hundred  per  cent. 
American — uneven  and  emotional,  rising  out  of  the  peo 
ple  themselves.  But  it  was  intense,  intolerant  toward 
any  obstructing  minority.  The  men  on  the  train  all 
talked  like  that.  This  was  no  time  for  an  easy  hand; 
the  liberty  of  the  world  was  at  stake;  and  pacifists  and 
strikers  and  little  skunks  of  every  kind  who  dared  to 
knock  the  government  were  pro-Germans  and  should  be 
in  jail.  "Win  the  War!"  I  heard  that  magic  slogan  in 
every  crowded  smoking  car,  and  talk  of  war  jobs  by  the 
score.  These  jobs  were  of  a  hundred  kinds,  but  all  con- 

341 


342  BLIND 

verged  on  the  one  resolve,  "Get  together  and  do  it 
quick!" 

At  the  stations  more  than  once  I  saw  troop  trains 
thunder  in,  with  voices  singing,  cheering,  boohing;  and 
women  and  girls  in  Red  Cross  garb  or  the  uniform  of 
the  Canteen  served  coffee  and  sandwiches,  cigarettes, 
with  smiles  and  quick  excited  talk  that  made  me  think  of 
the  night  long  ago  when  I  had  entered  Germany  upon  a 
starlit  Christmas  Eve.  And  yet  it  was  so  different  here. 
At  one  station  we  were  held  to  clear  the  track  for  a  long 
train,  which  came  in  with  a  load  of  lads  just  drafted, 
on  their  way  to  camp.  They  were  inclined  to  swagger, 
these  youths.  Most  of  them  came  from  a  rival  town, 
and  one  of  them  asked  with  withering  scorn, 

"Say — ain't  there  one  real  man  in  this  town  who 
ain't  afraid  of  the  Kaiser's  guns?" 

At  that  there  was  a  terrible  row.  But  suddenly  a 
piercing  voice  rang  out  above  the  tumult.  High  up  on  a 
baggage  truck  stood  an  old  man  with  a  crutch. 

"Heigh  there,  damn  ye,  listen  to  me!"  When  silence 
came,  he  rolled  his  quid,  spat  on  a  trunk  and  then 
drawled,  "Say.  If  you  brave  fellers  want  to  know  why 
our  boys  ain't  here  to  join  ye,  I'm  the  man  to  tell  ye. 
They  ain't  here  because  every  ding  blasted  fighting 
mother's  son  of  'em  is  gone  already.  Understand?  They 
didn't  wait  to  be  drafted — no  more'n  I  did  in  the  Civil 
War.  Now  shet  up  an'  go  on  back  into  your  train — or 
I  may  mob  ye !" 

I  remember  a  glimpse  we  had  of  the  principal  street 
in  a  little  town.  A  hundred  flags  were  waving  there  and 
a  home  band  was  crashing  away  as  though  the  whole 
war  depended  upon  it.  It  stopped,  and  a  speaker's  voice 
was  heard : 

"Your  country  needs  your  money,  friends — it  needs 
your  money  and  your  lives !" 

A   roar  of   cheers    from  the   farmer   crowd — and    I 


BLIND  343 

thought  of  my  Aunt  Amelia.  Her  beloved  West  had 
roused  at  last.  We  passed  a  lonely  farmhouse  out  on  a 
rolling  prairie.  It  was  nearly  midnight,  but  lights  still 
shone  from  its  windows ;  and  upon  a  field  nearby,  a  huge 
tractor  with  its  searchlight  throwing  a  bright  path  ahead 
was  dragging  a  gang  of  ploughs  along.  It  reminded  me 
of  my  cousin  Ed.  My  train  was  to  pass  not  far  from 
his  ranch,  so  I  sent  him  a  wire;  and  sure  enough,  the 
next  afternoon  at  a  prairie  station  he  got  on  the  train. 
What  a  change  from  the  man  of  a  year  before.  He 
looked  tense  and  overworked.  Half  the  men  were  gone 
from  his  ranch,  he  said,  and  his  son  was  on  a  destroyer. 
A  drive  for  the  Loan  had  just  begun,  and  it  was  a  devil 
of  a  rush  to  bring  up  the  County's  quota  to  double  what 
had  been  asked  for.  "Practically  every  farmer  is  buying 
more  bonds  than  he  ought  to — and  if  he  don't,  we  see 
that  he  does!"  One  "pro-German  slacker"  had  been 
ridden  on  a  rail,  another  thrown  into  the  creek — and 
the  rest  had  learned  their  lesson.  "No  bolshevik  has  a 
chance  out  here!"  For  my  accounts  of  Russia  he  had 
nothing  but  impatient  disgust.  When  I  tried  to  give 
him  some  idea  of  what  our  friendship  for  the  Slavs 
could  mean  if  it  were  given  in  time  to  head  off  a  Rus 
sian-German  entente,  he  interrupted  bluntly. 

"That  may  be  well  enough  for  the  millennium,"  he 
said.  "But  we've  got  one  job — to  lick  the  Huns!  And 
Russia's  a  quitter !  So  leave  her  alone !"  He  jerked  out 
his  watch.  "I've  got  to  jump  off  right  here  and  now — 
I'm  to  speak  at  a  meeting  tonight  back  home!  Good 
luck,  Larry,  glad  you're  back !  But  as  for  helping  those 
Rooskies  now,  I  wouldn't  give  'em  the  smell  of  my 
hogs!" 


2. 

Coming  from  such  talks  as  this,  such  glimpses  of  our 
strong  new  land  as  I  was  whirled  across  it  eastward, 


344  BLIND 

when  at  last  I  reached  New  York  it  struck  me  like  a  for 
eign  town.  As  our  train  came  into  the  city,  it  seemed 
as  though  every  window  had  a  foreigner  leaning  out; 
the  streets  were  filled  with  crowds  of  them;  and  in  the 
Grand  Central  the  whole  gigantic  hubbub  had  a  foreign 
accent  to  my  ears.  A  queer  home  town  for  a  man  in 
this  war!  I  dropped  my  luggage  at  Dad's  home;  and 
finding  none  of  the  family  in,  I  went  on  down  to  News 
paper  Row. 

"Go  by  Fifth  Avenue,"  I  said. 

"Slow  going,  boss,"  said  the  taxi  man. 

"Never  mind,  I  want  a  look  at  the  street." 

It  was  worth  seeing.  With  the  Drive  well  under  way, 
big  vivid  banners  and  the  flags  of  the  Allies  hung  over 
head;  there  were  brightly  colored  booths  below,  and 
men  and  women  and  even  small  boys  were  orating  on 
every  street  corner  to  crowds.  There  were  uproarious 
bursts  of  cheers,  the  crash  of  bands,  the  honk  of  horns. 
But  under  all  this  surface  flood  of  color  and  sound  I  kept 
noticing  the  endless  tides  of  foreign  faces  pressing  by. 
When  we  stopped  in  the  jam  I  could  hear  their  voices, 
harsh,  guttural,  shrill,  as  the  case  might  be.  Faces  florid, 
stolid,  pasty,  swarthy  faces,  gleaming  eyes  and  quick 
excited  gestures.  Down  into  Washington  Square  we 
came,  into  crowds  of  Italian  women  and  children.  We 
turned  into  the  Ghetto — a  hubbub  of  guttural  Yiddish 
there.  What  a  vulgar  hodge  podge  of  a  town!  But  the 
great  buildings  towering  ahead  made  me  suddenly  feel 
like  a  little  snob. 

"Who  the  devil  are  you,"  they  seemed  to  ask,  "Mr. 
Hundred  Per  Cent  American?  Who  built  this  town? 
We  are  made  of  steel  which  was  mined  and  milled  by 
Pollacks  and  Hungarians,  and  was  put  into  place  by  Irish 
steel  workers  under  contractors  who  are  for  the  most 
part  Jews." 

"I  know,  I  know,"  I  answered,  "the  Jews  own  the 


BLIND  345 

city  and  the  Irish  own  the  votes.  The  Jews  make  our 
clothes  and  the  Chinamen  wash  'em.  The  Germans  run 
our  music  and " 

"Here,  you,  quit  your  kicking.  Is  there  any  other 
city  on  earth  that  can  touch  me?'* 

"No,"  I  answered  humbly.  And  soon  I  was  under  the 
spell  of  my  town. 

I  reached  my  father's  house  that  day  in  time  for  tea 
with  Aunt  Fanny.  A  big  flag  rippled  softly  above  the 
front  door,  and  I  noticed  a  service  flag  in  one  of  the 
front  windows.  Young  Carrington  had  gone  to  France. 
There  was  no  foreign  accent  here — nothing  swarthy, 
dirty,  coarse.  Low  voices,  softly  lighted  rooms,  luxury 
and  restful  ease,  a  fire  burning  cosily.  While  Aunt  Fanny 
poured  the  tea,  I  settled  back  in  a  soft  chair  and  asked 
myself,  "What's  the  matter  now?  Can't  you  ever  feel  at 
home?"  But  within  me  a  small  guttural  voice  such  as 
I  had  heard  on  the  streets,  insisted,  "Say.  A  hell  of  a 
fine  home  this  is  for  American  democracy.  Look  at  the 
pin  she's  wearing."  This  was  a  lovely  enamel  affair.  It 
was  worn,  she  explained,  by  all  those  women  who 
belonged  to  the  Mayor's  Committee  for  the  National 
Defense.  In  this  defense  she  was  helping  by  working 
with  others  like  herself  to  "Americanize"  the  foreigners. 
Each  day  she  went  to  a  busy  office  from  which  a  stream 
of  orators  poured  forth  into  the  dirty  slums  and  talked 
to  the  people  about  the  flag  and  all  the  freedom  and  jus 
tice  and  democracy  it  stood  for. 

I  kept  watching  her  while  she  talked.  What  a  handsome 
woman  still,  and  what  exquisite  taste  and  gracious  assur 
ance.  A  new  light  was  in  her  eyes.  Yes,  Carrington 
had  gone  to  France,  and  she  was  proud  and  glad  to  give 
him  to  his  country.  Giving,  giving — it  was  in  the  air.  . 
My  father  had  gone  into  the  Loan  to  a  ruinous  extent, 
she  smilingly  informed  me.  In  the  house  they  had  let 
all  the  servants  go  but  six,  including  the  head  chauffeur. 


346  BLIND 

And  the  meals  had  been  cut  down.  She  had  kept  her 
box  at  the  opera,  in  order  to  use  her  influence  to  keep 
German  music  out.  German  propaganda  and  German 
spies  were  everywhere.  Her  daughter  Louise  was  work 
ing  as  a  clerk  in  a  branch  office  of  the  Military  Intelli 
gence.  And  the  things  she  hinted  at!  Presently  Louise 
came  home,  elated  by  several  arrests  for  which  she  had 
helped  to  gather  the  facts.  When  Dad  came  in,  he  looked 
to  me  years  older,  under  a  heavy  strain.  In  addition  to 
the  work  in  the  mills,  he  was  deep  in  the  Red  Cross  and 
several  other  organizations. 

"Glad  to  see  you,  son,"  he  said,  with  a  warm  grip 
on  my  hand.  "I'd  begun  to  think  you'd  not  get  out  alive. 
The  sooner  we  give  up  those  Russians,  the  better. 
They're  a  poor  bet!"  he  declared. 

We  went  into  his  study,  and  there  I  tried  to  give  him 
some  idea  of  what  I  thought  Russia  needed  from  us  and 
of  how  important  it  was  still  to  keep  some  vestige  of 
influence  there.  But  he  answered  grimly, 

"It  has  all  come  to  one  question  now.  Can  we  get 
our  men  to  France  in  time?  Everything  else  must  go 
by  the  board.  Besides,"  he  said  in  a  lower  tone,  "it  does 
make  a  difference  to  have  a  boy  of  your  own  over  there, 
and  know  that  those  skulking  Russian  Reds  are  making 
peace  and  setting  free  three  million  Huns  for  a  drive  in 
France!  Leave  Russia  alone!  We'll  attend  to  their 
case  later  on!" 


3. 

Soon  after  that  I  took  my  departure,  for  Dorothy, 
who  was  in  town,  had  already  telephoned,  and  I  had 
promised  to  go  with  her  out  to  Seven  Pines  that  night. 
I  dreaded  meeting  my  cousin  now.  I  had  not  seen  her 
for  nearly  a  year.  My  going  to  Russia  had  mollified  her 
feeling  against  my  stand  in  the  war;  but  remembering 
how  she  had  placed  her  hopes  in  revolution  overseas,  I 


BLIND  347 

felt  that  the  news  I  was  bringing  from  Russia  would 
lead  again  to  trouble  between  us.  And  so  it  was  a  relief 
to  me  when  something  or  other  delayed  her  in  town  and 
I  did  not  find  her  on  the  train. 

When  I  came  to  Seven  Pines  it  was  Aunt  Amelia  who 
greeted  me.  And  here  at  last  in  this  old  house  I  found 
what  I  was  hungry  for.  The  flag  flying  on  the  hill 
looked  so  thoroughly  at  home.  It  reminded  me  of  so 
many  Decoration  Days  gone  by,  from  the  time  when  I 
was  a  little  chap.  And  Aunt  Amelia  in  the  hall,  stand 
ing  near  the  tall  glass  case  where  hung  the  faded  uni 
form  of  the  army  surgeon  in  the  war  of  long  ago,  gave 
me  a  warm  welcome  home,  led  the  way  into  the  living 
room  and  settled  down  for  a  good  long  talk.  The  news 
from  Russia  was  twisted  so — she  was  sure  it  was,  and 
she  wanted  the  truth. 

"Your  father  gives  me  one  view  of  it  and  Dorothy 
another,"  she  said. 

"How  is  Dorothy  now?"  I  asked.  Her  mother's 
face  contracted  sharply. 

"It's  the  old  trouble/'  she  replied,  "but  so  much  worse 
than  it  was  before.  She's  the  wife  of  a  German  and 
therefore  a  spy !"  My  aunt's  voice  quivered  with  indig 
nation.  "In  a  struggle  so  tremendous  how  can  people 
be  so  small — so  stupidly  hysterical  ?  They  seem  to  think 
there  is  no  way  of  expressing  their  own  loyalty  except 
by  hounding  day  and  night  the  scattered  few  who  oppose 
the  war !  And  they've  done  their  worst  with  Dorothy — 
and  this  has  made  her  bitter  again.  She  is  always  talk 
ing  of  Russia  now,  as  though  the  revolution  there  were 
the  only  hopeful  thing  in  the  world.  She  has  been  so 
anxious  to  have  you  back." 

"I'm  afraid  I  haven't  very  good  news." 

"Oh  Larry — if  you  haven't — please  be  careful  what 
you  say." 

Soon  after  this,  Dorothy  arrived,  and  in  her  eager 


348  BLIND 

welcome  I  felt  again  the  trouble  ahead.  Remembering 
her  tragedy,  some  realization  came  to  me  of  what  she 
must  have  suffered  here,  as  the  widow  of  a  German 
and  one  who  was  passionately  honest  in  her  hatred  of  all 
war.  And  I  tried  at  first  to  keep  from  a  clash.  But  at 
the  various  points  I  made,  both  for  and  against  the 
Bolsheviki,  by  eager  interjections  she  supported  all  that 
I  said  in  their  favor,  but  when  I  talked  against  them 
she  pursed  her  lips  and  looked  disdain — as  though  I  were 
simply  proving  myself  a  traitor  to  the  whole  radical 
cause.  When  I  spoke  of  the  peace  they  were  planning 
to  make,  she  said, 

"Oh,  if  only  they  can  succeed!" 

"They  will,"  I  answered  grimly. 

"Then  you'll  see  how  all  the  workingmen  in  Germany 
will  respond!"  she  exclaimed.  "And  then  in  France 
and  Italy,  and  even  in  England — everywhere  but  over 
here !"  She  started  in  to  give  her  view  of  the  deepening 
intolerance  here.  But  Aunt  Amelia,  rising  and  speaking 
in  a  troubled  voice,  said, 

"Please,  dear,  please — you  mustn't  now — not  when  he 
has  just  come  home." 

Dorothy  looked  at  her  mother  a  moment,  and  then 
quickly  left  the  room.  There  was  a  brief  strained 
silence. 

"I'd  better  not  try  to  see  her,"  I  said.  "I  seem  to  do 
more  harm  than  good."  My  aunt  was  deep  in  her  own 
thoughts. 

"It  will  work  out,  Larry — it  will  work  out,"  she  said 
in  a  low  resolute  tone. 

She  turned  the  conversation  back  to  my  Russian 
experience;  and  after  the  rebuffs  I'd  had  from  others  in 
the  family,  all  of  whom  without  going  to  Russia  knew 
so  much  more  about  it  than  I,  it  was  a  joy  to  talk  with 
her  now.  The  quick  anxious  tone  of  her  questions,  the 
determined  eagerness  in  her  eyes  to  believe  that  even  the 


BLIND  34* 

Great  Revolution,  which  to  her  was  so  strange  and  grim, 
was  "all  for  the  best"  and  would  work  out  eventually  to 
a  splendid  end — are  with  me  still  as  I  look  back.  The 
world  made  safe  for  democracy.  The  old  religious 
fervor  of  her  forefathers  burned  in  her  faith  in  that 
phrase. 

"Larry,  this  is  a  war,"  she  said,  "which  before  it  is 
through  will  change  the  whole  point  of  view  of  the 
country.  Oh,  I  daresay  we  are  only  human,  and  there 
will  be  many  backslidings,  of  course;  but  Larry  dear, 
you  and  Dorothy — for  all  her  present  bitterness — will 
live  to  see  the  people  here  really  feeling  themselves  a 
part  of  a  family  reaching  around  the  earth — and 
stopping  all  wars,  and  steadying  down  all  revolutions — 
by  the  growing,  growing,  growing  determination  to  be 
fair — and  work  it  all  out  together — this  very  puzzling 
life  of  ours!" 

To  her  sympathetic  ears  I  outlined  what  I  thought 
should  be  our  Russian  policy;  and  if  my  Aunt  Amelia 
had  been  President  of  the  United  States,  there  is  no 
doubt  but  what  my  plan  would  have  been  carried  out  at 
once.  At  the  end  she  told  me  earnestly, 

"Your  duty  is  very  plain,  my  dear.  Our  people  are 
turning  against  Russia  simply  because  they  don't  know 
the  truth.  You  must  write  as  you  never  wrote  before !" 
She  hesitated.  "But  not  here.  It  will  be  wiser,  as  you 
say,  to  keep  away  from  Dorothy  now.  Why  don't  you 
go  over  to  Lucy  ?" 


4. 

I  stayed  with  my  sister  for  some  weeks.  Poor  Lucy 
had  had  an  anxious  time.  Steve  was  already  over  in 
France,  on  a  big  job  for  the  Red  Cross;  and  it  had  been 
hard  for  her  to  keep  the  place  running  since  he  left.  I 
liked  her  smiling  quiet  pluck.  She  was  glad  to  have  me 
with  her  while  I  did  my  Russian  articles.  Quickly  I  set- 


350  BLIND 

tied  down  to  work.  The  editor  of  my  paper  had  not  been 
encouraging.  He  agreed  however  to  run  my  stuff,  and 
to  syndicate  my  stories  to  papers  all  over  the  country. 
I  wrote  hard  and  fast,  for  I  wanted  to  finish  and  at  last 
get  over  to  France.  I  tried  my  pigmy  damnedest  to 
make  people  understand  that  this  was  no  longer  a 
struggle  to  be  finished  in  a  year,  but  part  of  a  mighty 
process  of  change  which  would  still  be  unfinished  when 
we  died,  and  could  never  be  finished  right  until  the  Rus 
sians  were  our  friends.  This  led  to  several  angry  talks, 
as  the  editor's  pencil,  red,  white  and  blue,  crashed 
through  "this  millenium  stuff"  of  mine.  Drop  such  ideas 
and  narrow  down  to  the  one  big  desperate  job  of  getting 
our  men  to  France  in  time!  That  was  the  one  great 
feverish  passion.  More  and  more  I  realized  the  hope 
lessness  of  my  attempt,  and  I  made  up  my  mind  to  get 
into  the  army. 

Nor  was  I  the  only  one.  When  Tommy  came  home 
for  Christmas,  in  spite  of  his  bouyant  youth  I  could 
feel  that  this  old  chum  of  mine  was  unnatural,  tense  to 
a  degree  that  brought  a  queer  set  look  on  his  face. 

"What  is  it,  Tommy?"  I  asked  him  once. 

"Nothing,"  he  answered  brusquely.  And  then  after  a 
moment's  pause,  "What's  the  use  of  trying  to  think  this 
out?  It  isn't  like  football — I  mean  to  say,  you  don't 
feel  like  the  player,  you  feel  like  the  ball."  Poor  Tommy 
gave  a  little  smile.  "The  game  is  so  darned  big,  you 
see.  But  there's  one  advantage  in  being  a  ball — you 
don't  have  to  worry  as  to  your  future.  By  the  way,"  he 
asked  abruptly,  "what  do  you  think  you're  going  to  do  ?" 
I  said  I  hoped  to  go  to  France. 

"Army?" 

"Yes." 

A  critical  look  that  said  very  plainly,  "You're  thin  as 
a  rail  and  forty-two." 

"Do  you  think  you  can  make  it?"  Tommy  asked. 


BLIND  351 

"I've  been  tipped  off  that  there's  a  chance."  My 
nephew  eyed  me  anxiously. 

"Look  here,  Uncle  Larry — couldn't  you  wait  till  Dad 
comes  back?" 

"Why?" 

"Why "    he    hesitated "it    leaves    Mother    all 

alone."    I  looked  at  him  with  a  quick  suspicion. 

"She  has  you,  hasn't  she?" 

"Maybe  so,  and  maybe  not.  How  can  a  ball  tell 
where  it'll  be?" 

"I  can  tell  where  you  will  be,  my  son,"  I  admonished 
sternly.  "You  stick  right  at  school  where  you  belong, 
till  your  country  is  ready  to  use  you!" 

"Wait  till  I'm  drafted — two  years  more?  Say,  what 
are  you  giving  me?"  Tommy  rejoined,  with  the  old 
twinkle  in  his  eye. 

"Exactly,"  I  retorted.  "You're  a  ball  and  you've  got 
to  wait  till  you're  kicked." 

"All  right,  all  right,"  he  agreed.  "But  this  particular 
little  ball  is  not  being  kicked  by  some  fool  rules  that  a 
lot  of  Congressmen  have  laid  down,  but  by  something  a 
lot  bigger  than  that !  I  tell  you  I  can't  help  myself — no 
more  than  you.  I'm  sorry  for  poor  Mother — but  after 
all,  that's  up  to  Dad.  He  has  done  his  bit  and  he  ought 
to  come  home !  I've  waited  eight  months " 

"You're  barely  eighteen,  Tommy "    He  grinned 

and  rose  to  his  full  height. 

"Couldn't  I  pass  for  twenty-one?" 

"If  you  want  to  lie  about  it,"  I  groaned. 

"Oh,  thunder,"  he  said  cheerfully,  "I'm  one  of  the 
best  little  liars  you  know.  In  fact  there's  quite  a  crowd 
of  us,  in  the  senior  class  at  school.  We  call  ourselves 
'The  Liars.'  We  know  every  question  they'll  ask  by 
heart." 

"Look  here,  old  man,"  I  ventured.  "How  about  the 
Navy?" 


352  BLIND 

"Navy,  nix,"  was  his  quick  reply.  'They're  all  right 
as  far  as  they  go — but  it  isn't  far  enough.  Me  for  the 
trenches !" 

There  came  to  me  a  memory  of  that  night  of  rain 
and  din  out  along  the  German  Front. 

"Tommy,"  I  said  earnestly,  "I  won't  tell  your  mother 
about  this " 

"You  bet  you  won't!"  he  threw  in. 

"But  you've  got  to  promise  not  to  make  a  move  in  this 
without  letting  me  know." 

"All  right,  that's  fair  enough,"  he  agreed. 

But  only  a  few  days  after  he  had  left  us  to  go  back  to 
school,  a  letter  came  from  a  training  camp;  and  with  a 
sinking  feeling  I  recognized  his  handwriting. 

"Sorry,  old  man — but  it  is  just  as  I  told  you,"  Tommy 
wrote.  "I  am  one  of  the  best  little  liars  you  know. 
When  I  gave  you  that  promise  I  meant  to  keep  it- 
honest  I  did — but  the  game  is  so  big — and  it  got  me 
right  on  the  street  in  New  York.  A  crowd  of  our  fellows 
were  going  by — and  right  there  was  a  recruiting  tent  for 
the  U.  S.  Regular  Army — which  still  thank  God  takes 
volunteers.  Here  is  where  this  little  ball  takes  a  stitch 
in  time  I  remarked.  It  is  time  young  cousin  Carrington 
quits  patting  his  snobby  little  chest  as  the  only  fighting 
man  in  the  Hart  connection,  So  in  I  went — and  I  lied 
so  well  that  here  I  am.  What's  done  is  done  and  I  count 
on  you  to  keep  Mother  or  anyone  else  in  the  family 
from  raising  a  howl  about  my  age.  I  am  such  a  husk, 
Uncle  Larry — you  see  how  it  is — I  am  such  a  husk. 
So  I  count  on  you.  One  good  lie  deserves  another.  I 
want  you  to  lie  to  Mother  now.  Tell  her  I  will  prob 
ably  not  get  over  for  a  year  and  the  war  will  be  ended 
long  before  that.  And  tell  her  I  am  in  fine  shape— a 
corporal  first  crack  out  of  the  box !  Gee  but  it  is  good  to 
be  through  with  all  that  making  up  your  mind !  Thank 
God  I  used  my  self-starter!  Be  sure  to  emphasize  to 


BLIND  355 

Mother  that  when  all  is  said  and  done  after  all  I  am  such 
a  husk!" 

Lucy  took  it  hard  at  first.  After  a  long  talk  with  me 
and  another  with  Aunt  Amelia,  she  decided  that  if  Steve 
were  home  he  would  not  try  to  get  Tommy  out.  But  it 
was  not  easy.  She  grew  silent  and  preoccupied,  or  too 
obviously  cheerful.  It  was  weeks  since  she  had  heard 
from  Steve. 


5. 

Soon  after  this  I  left  her  to  make  a  trip  to  Washing 
ton,  there  to  seek  some  help  in  my  scheme  to  get  into 
the  Army  Intelligence  without  being  stuck  at  a  desk  on 
this  side.  I  had  hopes  of  landing  a  job  as  regimental 
intelligence  officer.  This  meant  going  into  a  camp  and 
taking  the  regular  officer's  training.  The  physcal  exam 
ination  would  be  hard  for  me  to  pass,  but  I  hoped  to 
offset  deficiencies  by  my  knowledge  of  French  and  Ger 
man.  I  did  not  find  it  easy.  It  seemed  as  though  every 
friend  I  had  was  so  infernally  occupied  that  it  was 
hours  before  he  could  see  me;  and  when  he  did,  he  cheer 
fully  sent  me  on  to  somebody  else.  For  the  drowsy  old 
seat  of  government  was  become  a  seething  stew  of 
change.  I  got  so  many  impressions  that  I  wrote  them 
for  my  paper  one  night;  and  part  at  least  of  what  I 
wrote  seems  worth  while  including  here — if  only  to 
remind  us,  in  these  fat  puffy  prosperous  days,  of  how 
we  felt  two  years  ago.  I  called  it,  The  Great  Invasion. 

"Washington  has  been  invaded,"  I  wrote,  "by  an  army 
of  ideas — a  host  of  strange  new  aims  and  methods  born 
in  the  clash  and  din  abroad  and  now  entering  here  to 
bore  and  burrow  their  devious  ways  deep  into  our  na 
tional  institutions.  We  are  being  driven  to  drastic 
powers  of  control  over  the  whole  nation's  life.  The 
country  has  gone  service  mad  and  mobilization  crazy. 
For  as  the  Great  War  rushes  into  its  crisis,  we  are  con- 


354  BLIND 

fronted  by  the  fact  that  Europe  is  facing  starvation,  not 
only  a  dearth  of  food  supplies  but  of  all  its  capital  as 
well.  The  world's  resources  are  being  destroyed  with  a 
speed  that  forces  upon  us  the  question,  'How  is  the 
world  to  get  going  again  ?'  We  know  that  we  are  a  part 
of  it  now;  we  are  learning  to  think  ourselves  out  with 
a  map  of  the  planet  before  our  eyes;  and  we  are  begin 
ning  to  dream  new  dreams.  Yesterday  Europe  sneered 
at  us  for  being  money-grabbers,  for  waxing  fat  while 
Europe  starved  and  bled  and  died  for  big  ideals.  Well, 
we  are  waxing  lean  these  days  in  our  strenuous  Yankee 
fashion,  reaching  out  for  those  ideals  and  then  adding 
some  of  our  own — demanding  nothing  for  ourselves  but 
what  we  ask  for  everyone  else,  peace  and  brotherhood 
for  the  world  and  safety  for  democracy  in  all  lands  and 
on  all  seas.  We  have  pledged  ourselves  to  an  under 
taking  wider  than  most  of  us  guess.  One  feels  the 
impact  every  day  of  a  tremendous  tonic  force  on  minds 
that  react  in  such  different  ways — minds  cautious  and 
conservative;  minds  dogmatic,  narrow,  hard;  minds 
open,  warm  and  generous.  All  men  are  by  no  means 
heroes  here;  there  is  much  petty  meanness,  egregious 
blundering  and  graft.  But  the  comedie  humaine  I  have 
seen  is  immeasurably  deeper  than  that,  and  wider  in  its 
implications.  As  in  the  plays  of  the  ancient  Greeks,  so 
here  you  feel  blind  forces  and  tremendous  destinies 
working  their  will  upon  us  little  mortals. 

"For  in  this  year  of  stress  and  strain,  two  giant  shapes 
appear  to  me  to  be  hovering  over  our  heads.  The  first 
one  is  the  grim  old  god  of  war  and  savage  force  and 
death.  The  other  one  is  high  above,  like  some  huge 
creature  of  the  air,  its  outlines  still  but  dimly  seen,  the 
spirit  of  a  super-nation  which  some  call  a  League  of 
Peace.  While  we  blindly  worked  and  schemed  in  our 
little  gardens  of  civilization,  suddenly  war  burst  upon  us 
like  a  bleak  October  gale.  It  has  stripped  off  the  foliage, 


BLIND  355 

has  swept  away  the  rich  soft  earth  and  brought  us  down 
with  a  jar  to  bed-rock.  We  are  made  to  feel  that  this 
world  of  ours  is  no  longer  safe  as  we  thought  it  to  be. 
But  we  are  meeting  the  challenge.  We  are  answering, 
'If  there  must  be  war,  let  it  be  the  last.  There  must  be 
peace  and  justice  and  freedom  for  all  nations.  And  to 
this  task  we  dedicate  our  somewhat  money-ridden  lives, 
our  somewhat  misused  liberties,  our  not  wholly  sacred 
happiness.  For  this  is  no  mere  calamity,  but  one  of  the 
grandest  chances  that  has  ever  come  to  Man*." 

Two  years  have  gone  since  I  wrote  that  sketch,  and 
till  Dorothy  read  it  to  me  last  night  I  had  almost  for 
gotten  how  I  used  to  feel  in  those  days.  I  did  feel  like 
that — I  distinctly  recall,  the  night  when  I  wrote  it,  my 
grim  resolve  not  to  let  myself  be  carried  away  in  all  this 
patriotic  glow;  I  remembered  my  talk  on  the  German 
train  with  the  young  dramatic  critic,  and  I  tried  to  be 
sincere  and  real,  admitting  our  faults  and  weaknesses, 
and  writing  only  what  I  had  seen,  what  I  honestly  felt 
to  be  there.  But  it  was  there,  to  a  degree  that  most  of  us 
have  forgotten  now — that  tremendous  national  will. 
Keep  up  morale — throw  off  all  gloom!  The  whole 
nation  was  unconsciously  taking  to  Christian  Science, 
treating  itself  in  great  warm  waves  of  determined 
optimism  and  faith.  In  my  stuffy  hotel  room  that  night 
I  wrote  what  I  saw —  but  I  saw  what  I  wanted.  I  saw 
my  whole  country  roused  and  stirred  as  never  before  in 
my  lifetime,  I  saw  the  war  as  a  crusade  for  human  liber 
ties  everywhere,  I  saw  a  future  of  glorious  change  mov 
ing  all  humanity  on  to  inexpressibly  better  days. 

And  as  I  look  back  I  am  quite  ready  to  defend  that 
point  of  view.  For  all  its  exaggeration,  on  the  whole 
there  was  more  truth  in  it  than  most  people  now 
believe,  in  these  blind  and  prosperous  days.  It  had  its 
faults,  its  tyranny,  intolerance  and  stupid  waste — but 
without  its  driving  force  we  might  have  lost  just  those 


356  BLIND 

few  weeks  which  would  have  allowed  the  Germans  to 
break  through  at  Chateau  Thierry.  And  as  for  the  cru 
sade  part  of  it,  those  glorious  changes  for  the  world- — 
this  thing  is  far  from  finished  yet! 


6. 

So  much  for  my  feeling  in  Washington.  But  in  spite 
of  my  optimism  there,  it  was  wonderful  nevertheless  to 
get  out  of  that  immense  welter  of  plans,  of  good  and  bad, 
of  weak  and  strong,  and  suddenly  to  find  myself  in  an 
officers'  training  camp;  to  have  cast  to  the  winds  my 
freedom  of  choice  and  become  a  cog  in  the  machine;  to 
have  ceased  the  endless  straining  to  envisage  the  whole 
Big  Show  and  narrow  to  one  little  part;  to  learn  my  job, 
to  rise  at  dawn  and  all  day  long  try  to  do  one  thing  after 
the  other  just  exactly  as  I  was  told;  to  feel  my  aching 
body  and  nerves  respond  to  this  life,  to  sleep  like  a  log — 
for  the  first  time  in  years  to  sleep  without  dreaming.  I 
remember  being  pleased  as  Punch  with  almost  every 
thing  in  sight — pleased  with  the  first  aches  and  pains, 
stiff  muscles,  joints  and  blistered  feet — for  I  was  in  just 
the  mood  for  that.  I  was  pleased  with  the  endless  little 
jobs  and  the  small  gossip  of  the  camp,  and  the  jokes  and 
songs  and  games  of  these  glorious  youngsters.  I  liked 
the  furious  digging  into  books  and  manuals,  and  the 
classes  and  the  lectures.  It  took  me  back  to  New  Haven 
at  times,  and  yet  how  different!  Lordy  God,  how  these 
kids  worked! 

But  the  pictures  have  grown  dim  behind  the  memories 
of  other  camps.  I  got  my  commission  soon  and  was 
transferred  to  a  cantonment — how  immense  it  seemed  to 
me  then !  I  was  attached  to  a  regiment  of  the  field  artil 
lery.  I  remember  how  they  rushed  the  work,  how  from 
the  start  we  were  made  to  feel  that  in  another  month  or 
so  we'd  get  our  orders  to  entrain — and  the  deepening 
impatience!  They  kept  us  right  up  on  our  toes.  Each 


BLIND  357 

morning  with  the  captains,  most  of  them  hardly  more 
than  boys,  I  lined  up  before  our  colonel,  a  pent-up 
dynamo  of  a  man  who  snapped  and  snarled  and  shouted, 
knew  nothing  of  fatigue  himself  and  spared  nobody, 
hurled  us  on.  Soon  I  could  feel  the  tightening  strain  in 
the  nerves  of  the  lads  who  stood  rigid  there  waiting  for 
his  next  explosion.  Out  of  fourteen  captains,  two  went 
out  of  their  heads  that  spring.  One  I  have  heard  is  still 
insane.  The  other  was  an  actor,  who  had  once  been  in  a 
play  of  mine. 

"You  know,  Hart,  old  man,"  he  confided,  "I  never  get 
over  the  feeling  that  this  whole  business  is  a  show. 
Damn  it,  I'm  acting  all  the  time.  When  the  Colonel 
bawls  me  out  and  I'm  there  at  attention  stiff  as  a  post, 
I'm  acting,  by  God!  When  I  drill  my  men  it's  just  as 
bad.  I  sat  in  a  court-martial  the  other  day.  But  was  I 
judging  ?  Not  a  bit !  I  was  playing  the  part  of  a  judge ! 
And  if  I  do  say  it,"  he  added,  complacently  stroking  his 
small  mustache,  "I  played  the  part  damn  well,  old  chap." 

Even  when  the  pace  got  him  at  last,  and  he  was  led 
off  one  day  in  April  gibbering  like  a  crazy  fool,  I  could 
not  keep  from  wondering  whether  he  were  not  acting 
still.  In  a  week  he  was  back  with  us,  gay  as  a  lark ;  and 
when  drill  time  came  around,  out  he  marched  to  play  his 
part He  was  killed  in  the  Argonne. 

The  other  one,  who  went  insane  and  stayed  insane, 
was  a  slim  tense  sober  youngster  who  seemed  to  hold 
the  whole  war  in  his  eyes.  A  lad  with  too  much  imag 
ination.  He  and  I  were  close  chums  for  a  time.  I  do 
not  like  to  think  of  him  now — and  almost  always  I  suc 
ceed  in  keeping  him  out  of  this  room. 


7. 

I  remember  a  week-end  in  March  when  I  came  back 
to  Seven  Pines.  My  cousin  Dorothy  was  not  here ;  but 
Steve  had  just  come  home  from  France,  I  had  not  seen 


358  BLIND 

him  for  nearly  a  year,  and  the  many  questions  he  asked 
about  my  trip  to  Russia  took  my  thoughts  far  back.  But 
I  could  not  hold  my  mind  to  it.  Now  he  in  turn  was  tell 
ing  of  the  seething-  restlessness  of  labor  in  France  and 
England ;  but  try  as  I  would,  I  could  not  keep  from  fairly 
yawning  in  his  face.  It  was  ten  o'clock,  my  bedtime. 
With  a  jerk  I  pulled  up  from  a  doze.  Steve  smiled  over 
his  cigarette,  and  drowsily  I  heard  his  voice : 

"Healthy  as  a  dormouse,  eh?" 

The  insult  woke  me  up  a  bit,  and  I  questioned  him  for 
a  few  minutes  more.  Then  back  came  my  mind  to  the 
one  grim  job.  Now  in  a  few  weeks  we'd  be  off.  Steve 
asked  what  I'd  seen  of  Tommy  in  camp;  and  catching  the 
anxiety  in  that  quiet  voice  of  his,  I  kept  awake  for  a  half 
hour  more  while  I  told  of  the  glimpses  I'd  had  of  the 
boy  and  the  brief  talks  with  him  now  and  then. 
Tommy's  infantry  regiment  was  in  the  same  Division 
as  mine.  Already  made  a  sergeant,  he  was  doing  splen 
didly.  I  tried  to  enlarge  on  the  details  of  his  unfailing 
genial  cheer  and  his  popularity.  But  I  had  seen  him 
scarcely  at  all,  and  it  was  very  hard  to  draw  on  my  imag 
ination  that  night.  A  few  minutes  later  somebody 
laughed  and  told  me  to  go  to  bed.  I  did. 

The  next  day  I  went  to  church  with  my  aunt;  and 
there  I  heard  Steve's  father,  who  was  nearly  eighty 
years  old,  urge  the  village  on  to  the  war.  Taking  slavery 
for  his  theme,  he  spoke  first  of  our  Civil  War.  With 
the  sword  we  had  set  the  black  man  free;  and  now  we 
were  on  a  greater  crusade,  to  emancipate  all  the  slaves 
in  the  world.  He  spoke  of  the  Armenians  and  described 
the  day  in  this  village  when  we  had  sent  a  missionary 
out  to  that  unhappy  land.  We  had  been  like  that.  But 
the  Germans  ?  They  had  always  supported  the  Turks  and 
had  even  instigated  the  massacres  in  Armenia.  He  drew 
a  lurid  picture  of  the  butcheries  over  there  and  of  the 
Belgian  atrocities.  Germany  stood  for  despotism  and 


BLIND  359 

for  bloody  conquest.  But  the  vengeance  of  the  Lord 
would  soon  be  upon  them;  for  we,  his  chosen  instru 
ments,  must  crush  this  German  nation,  break  its  strength 
and  shatter  its  pride,  so  that  never  again  could  it  menace 
the  world! 

But  it  did  not  seem  to  me  that  the  congregation 
responded  to  this  terrible  old  Puritan's  darkly  emotional 
appeal.  As  we  came  out  I  heard  somebody  murmur, 
"How  he  does  love  to  paint  pictures  of  Hell — whether 
in  this  life  or  the  next."  And  a  red-haired  youngster 
home  from  camp  demanded  in  a  loud  clear  voice, 

"Gee,  Mother,  can't  you  think  up  something  a  little 
more  cheerful  in  the  way  of  entertainment  when  I  come 
home?" 

A  minority  there,  I  think,  thoroughly  approved  of  the 
sermon;  and  later  this  minority  grew.  But  through  the 
conflict  to  the  end,  the  view  of  most  Americans  was 
more  nearly  expressed,  I  believe,  by  Aunt  Amelia  and 
her  kind.  Sorely  wounded  deep  inside  by  the  attacks  on 
Dorothy,  she  had  no  use  or  patience  for  the  haters  all 
about.  Hiding  her  own  trouble  as  something  she  must 
bear  alone,  patient  and  kind  with  this  daughter  of  hers 
in  the  faith  that  out  of  these  bitter  days  there  would 
come  a  happier  time,  convinced  of  the  Tightness  of  the 
cause  for  which  her  country  had  entered  the  war,  she 
took  it  into  her  religion  now.  "Mine  Eyes  Have  Seen 
the  Glory  of  the  Coming  of  the  Lord."  My  Aunt  Amelia's 
eyes  were  fixed  upon  the  great  awakening,  the  new 
vision  in  the  land.  Rumors  of  possible  defeat,  of  blun 
ders,  graft,  red  tape  and  the  like,  made  little  or  no 
impression  upon  her.  She  felt  the  great  work  forging 
on,  and  she  was  sure  we  should  be  in  time. 

"We  must  never  let  ourselves  doubt  it — not  for  one 
moment!"  she  declared. 

But  she  saw  more  than  winning  the  war.  In  countless 
little  ways  she  felt  how  the  village  through  its  sons  was 


360  BLIND 

opening  its  eyes  to  the  world.  She  watched  the  service 
flags  appear  in  almost  every  window;  and  she  knew  the 
stories  behind  them,  for  the  Red  Cross  work  she  was 
doing  kept  her  in  touch  with  the  women  and  took  her 
frequently  into  their  homes.  Many  letters  came  to  her 
from  the  West,  and  eagerly  she  gleaned  the  news  of  the 
Great  Coming  Together,  not  only  in  work  for  the  sol 
diers  but  out  on  the  ranches  and  the  farms.  Here  was 
brotherhood  at  last,  and  brotherhood  of  a  practical  kind 
— a  kind  that  would  work,  yet  did  its  work  not  for  any 
selfish  profit  but  for  a  world-wide  ideal!  Even  New 
York  had  discovered  its  soul.  From  the  big  shop  win 
dows  all  along  Fifth  Avenue,  the  rich  gowns  and  hats 
and  jewels  were  giving  way  to  make  room  for  other 
appeals.  She  told  of  one  large  window  which  had  for 
merly  been  arranged  to  represent  a  boudoir.  "Every 
thing,"  my  aunt  declared,  "that  no  decent  woman  wants 
was  there."  Now  it  was  gone  and  in  its  place  was  the 
inside  of  a  Belgian  hut,  with  a  woman  and  some  starv 
ing  children.  Even  New  York  had  become  like  that! 
What  must  the  rest  of  the  country  be?  She  read  me  a  let 
ter  from  the  West  describing  a  farmer's  auction  for  the 
benefit  of  the  Red  Cross.  During  the  auction  a  flock  of 
wild  geese  passed  high  overhead  on  their  way  up  North. 
The  auctioneer  was  quick  to  act. 

"How  much  am  I  offered,"  he  shouted,  "for  them 
geese  up  in  the  clouds?  Lively  now!  It's  for  the  Red 
Cross!"  And  the  bidding  was  so  fast,  that  while  the 
geese  were  still  in  sight  he  was  shouting,  "Ninety  dol 
lars  for  the  flock !  Ninety  dollars  for  the  flock !  Make  it 
a  hundred!  Do  your  bit!  A  hundred  I'm  offered! 
Going  at  that!  Going,  going,  going — gone!"  And  the 
geese  disappeared  in  a  distant  cloud. 

She  had  many  similar  incidents.  As  the  troops 
poured  into  the  port  to  embark,  the  sons  of  her  many 
friends  in  the  West  came  to  see  her  at  Seven  Pines ;  and 


BLIND  361 

they  told  her  what  she  wanted  to  know.  Already  she 
was  writing  to  several  who  had  gone  to  France;  and  as 
she  sat  at  her  desk  by  a  window,  her  fancy  often  trav 
elled  far. 

"Sometimes  it  seems  to  me,  Larry,"  she  said,  "that 
I  can  feel  the  women  at  windows  all  over  the  world,  my 
dear — writing  letters  to  men  and  boys,  or  knitting  or 
rolling  bandages,  or  at  cradles  or  by  the  beds  of  the  sick 
— women  in  those  moments  when  as  we  work  we  can 
very  quietly  think  and  think  about  it  all.  And  I  have 
such  a  feeling  then  of  our  all  thinking  and  feeling 
together.  A  kind  of  a  world  sense  it  is.  I  never  have 
had  it  before  in  my  life." 

This  was  what  the  war  had  done,  she  said.  From 
this  time  forth  all  peoples  would  understand  each  other 
better,  and  with  that  would  come  a  friendliness  so  vast 
that  the  enemy  countries,  too,  would  be  swept  into  the 
brotherhood. 

In  brief,  like  so  many  of  her  kind,  she  saw  only  what 
she  wanted  to  see — and  what  she  wanted  'was  only 
good. 


8. 

But  others  could  see  only  the  bad — and  Dorothy  was 
one  of  them.  On  my  brief  visits  home  she  was  not 
here.  I  could  feel  her  mother  arranged  it  so,  and  I  was 
grateful.  It  would  have  been  hard.  Not  that  I  blamed 
her.  I  do  not  still.  The  persecutions  she  had  to  endure, 
although  as  petty  as  they  were  stupid,  still  were  very 
real  to  her  and  kept  the  wound  of  her  bitterness  open 
by  vicious  little  thrusts.  One  of  her  tormentors  lived  in 
the  next  house  down  the  hill.  With  two  sons  already  in 
France,  this  woman  in  her  searching  for  some  way  to  do 
her  bit  had  made  of  herself  an  amateur  sleuth,  and 
almost  everything  she  did  was  comic — until  vou  saw  its 
effects.  She  simply  could  not  understand  why  Dorothy 


362  BLIND 

was  not  in  jail.  The  evidence  was  so  complete!  Here 
was  a  girl  who  had  married  a  German,  had  gone  with 
him  to  Germany  and  there  no  doubt  had  encouraged  him 
in  preparing  gas  attacks.  Not  content  with  that,  she  had 
inveigled  her  two  American  cousins  over  to  the  land  of 
the  Huns — one  aiding  as  a  surgeon  to  put  disabled  sol 
diers  back  at  the  front  to  kill  our  Allies,  the  other  by 
his  writings  helping  to  spread  the  German  lies.  Then 
this. writer  had  gone  to  Russia;  and  shortly  after  he 
arrived,  that  unhappy  country  had  gone  over  to  the  Ger 
man  side!  Moreover,  now  the  surgeon  was  in  his  sani 
tarium  high  up  on  a  hill  overlooking  the  Sound.  Signal 
lights  had  been  seen  on  that  hill — while  Dorothy,  also  on 
a  hill,  had  raised  or  lowered  her  window  shades  and  had 
kept  her  bedroom  lighted  often  until  nearly  dawn! 

Not  once  but  half  a  dozen  times  did  this  patriotic 
neighbor  send  officials  of  various  kinds  to  Dorothy's 
home  to  arrest  her.  They  were  met  by  Dorothy's  mother 
here,  and  after  she  had  talked  with  them  they  went  away 
quite  satisfied.  But  the  woman  then  went  over  their 
heads;  she  sent  letters  and  petitions  to  government 
agencies  far  and  near.  A  friend  of  mine  in  the  M.  L, 
with  whom  I  dined  one  night  in  New  York,  said  to  me 
in  exasperation, 

"Confound  these  hysterical  women!  They  pour  in  so 
many  false  alarms  that  our  office  is  swamped,  and  we 
waste  the  time  that  we  ought  to  spend  in  running  the 
real  enemy  down!" 

Against  such  constant  torment,  Dorothy  reacted  by 
growing  steadily  more  intense.  From  her  own  experi 
ence  she  made  sweeping  generalities.  Reading  the  news 
papers  each  day,  her  mind  and  imagination  seized  upon 
all  evidence  of  injustice  and  oppression.  God  knows 
there  was  enough  of  that.  But  she  made  no  allowance 
for  the  terrific  rush  of  those  days;  nor  did  she  seem  to 
have  any  sense  of  the  real  treason  in  the  land,  the 


BLIND  363 

thousands  of  German  agents  here  who  succeeded  in  blow 
ing  up  mills  by  the  score  and  would  have  blown  up 
hundreds  had  not  they  been  caught  in  time.  Moreover, 
the  truth  as  I  saw  it  then  about  our  country  in  the  war, 
in  spite  of  all  the  blunders  and  the  needless  tyrannies, 
still  held  so  much  of  the  widening  vision  and  the  mighty 
stimulus  which  Dorothy's  mother  felt  in  it  all,  that  even 
now  as  I  look  back,  her  view — idealized  though  it  was 
— seems  immeasurably  nearer  the  truth. 

And  at  the  time  I  could  see  nothing  else;  for  in  those 
anxious  months  of  spring  the  German  armies  were 
rapidly  driving  deeper  into  France;  the  morale  of  the 
French  and  English  seemed  at  last  about  to  break;  and 
the  question  "Can  we  be  in  time?"  was  the  one  big  topic 
in  the  camps.  Down  in  my  cantonment,  caught  in  the 
general  tensity,  the  same  change  had  occurred  in  myself 
which  I  had  noticed  in  others  on  my  return  from  Russia. 
How  remote  it  seemed,  all  that,  and  how  unimportant, 
compared  to  the  grim  urgency  here! 

On  my  last  leave  of  absence,  I  came  home  to  Seven 
Pines  so  dog-tired  that  right  after  supper  I  went  to  bed. 
For  a  little  while  I  lay  awake  listening  to  the  quivering 
hum  which  came  from  Dad's  munition  mills,  and  to  the 
endless  motor  trucks  thundering  along  the  road  at  the 
foot  of  our  hill  on  their  way  to  New  York.  All  over 
the  country,  day  and  night,  I  could  feel  the  work,  the 
Straining  to  build,  to  forge,  to  drill. 

"In  a  month  I  shall  be  over  there." 

I  had  strained  my  arm  the  day  before.  It  was  stiff, 
and  after  I  fell  asleep  I  must  have  thrashed  about  a  bit 
— for  I  awoke  with  a  slight  start.  My  pillow  was  gone. 
I  lay  there  a  moment  in  the  dark  vaguely  groping  in  my 
mind^  for  some  dim  memory  from  the  past.  Ah,  now  I 
had  it!  Goblins!  A  night  nearly  forty  years  before 
when  I  was  a  little  shaver,  and  Ed  and  I  had  slept  in 
this  room.  This  time  I  did  not  shut  my  eyes;  but  when 


364  BLIND 

I  had  picked  up  the  pillow  from  the  floor  beside  my  bed, 
I  lay  for  some  time  longer  drifting  in  the  memories  of 
that  little  stranger  of  long  ago.  How  many  goblins  had 
come  since  then,  creeping  up  in  the  darkness — then  slip 
ping  away.  And  now  the  war. 

I  heard  a  car  come  up  the  hill;  it  stopped  at  the  door, 
and  a  little  later  I  heard  Dorothy's  voice  on  the  stairs. 
I  was  wide  awake  now.  Did  she  know  I  was  here? 
After  all,  we  had  been  together  here  so  many  years — 
ever  since  we  were  children.  She  had  been  like  a  kid 
sister.  ...  I  heard  her  stop  before  my  door. 

"Is  that  you,  Dorothy?" 

"Oh,  you're  awake.  ...  I  was  afraid  I'd  miss  you. 
Mother  says  you  have  to  leave  early  tomorrow." 

"Yes — at  five."    There  was  a  pause. 

"Are  you  very  sleepy  ?" 

"No,  no — I'll  be  right  down." 

"Oh,  don't  do  that — you  must  be  so  tired."  The  door 
opened,  and  in  the  path  of  light  I  saw  her  like  a  shadow. 
"Let  me  just  come  in  for  a  moment,"  she  said,  "and  then 
I'll  let  you  go  to  sleep." 

"I'm  not  sleepy  now.  Wide  awake  as  an  owl."  As 
she  came  in  and  sat  down  in  the  dark,  I  told  about  my 
pillow  and  the  goblin  night  of  long  ago.  We  laughed 
a  little. 

"I've  brought  you  something.  Listen,"  she  said.  And 
a  moment  later  I  heard  the  tinkle  of  little  chimes.  "It's 
the  watch  Mother  gave  me  to  use  over  there.  Don't  you 
remember?  You  brought  it  with  you — to  Berlin. 
Wouldn't  you  like  it?" 

"Yes,"  I  said.  She  came  and  put  it  in  my  hand,  and 
I  held  hers  for  a  moment. 

"You  understand?"  she  whispered.  "I  can't  feel  as 
you  do  about  the  war — but  I'll  be  so  glad — so  glad  when 
it's  over,  and  you  are  back  again  with  us,  dear!" 

"Don't  go  yet,"  I  begged  her.     "There's  a  whale  of 


BLIND  365 

a  goblin  here  tonight.  He  has  been  hanging  'round  for 
the  last  six  months — trying  to  spoil  all  we've  been  to 
each  other.  The  only  way  to  chase  him  out  is  to  laugh 
at  him,  and  talk  and  talk." 

So  we  talked  of  the  jolliest  foolishest  times,  and  we 
did  not  speak  of  the  war  at  all.  But  I  spoke  again  of 
that  goblin  night  and  then  of  goblins  large  and  small, 
friendly  ones  and  nasty  ones  that  come  leering  and  pok 
ing  and  elbowing  into  good  people's  lives  to  torment 
them — then  get  tired  and  slink  away. 

"I  won't  see  you  again  before  you  go,"  she  said  softly, 
at  the  end.  "Goodnight,  Larry  dear." 

I  saw  her  once  more  for  a  moment  in  the  path  of  light 
through  the  door.  Then  she  shut  it,  and  again  it  was 
dark. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

1. 

JUST  before  we  left  for  France,  Steve  brought  Lucy 
and  Aunt  Amelia  out  to  Camp  Mills  to  say  goodbye.  It 
was  a  hot  muggy  day  in  May.  The  big  embarkation 
camp  had  space  for  two  divisions,  some  sixty  thousand 
men  and  boys.  It  was  already  nearly  full,  and  into  that 
big  city  of  tents  along  the  dusty  roads  and  paths  still 
more  troops  were  pouring  in.  Their  tramping  feet  kept 
clouds  of  yellow  dust  in  the  air — dust  on  the  tents  and 
the  low  buildings,  dust  on  the  boots  and  uniforms,  dust 
on  the  very  flags  they  bore,  -dust  on  faces,  lips  and  eyes — • 
dust  of  the  everyday  labor  of  war,  the  hard  bleak  job 
of  learning  to  kill.  And  as  this  dust  hung  in  the  air,  so 
too  it  seemed  to  lie  thick  on  the  minds  and  feelings  of 
these  fighting  men. 

I  glanced  at  Aunt  Amelia.  What  a  pity  she  had 
come  out  here,  bang  up  against  realities.  I  could  see  her 
flinch  a  bit  at  first  but  adjust  herself  as  time  \vent  on; 
and  in  the  questions  that  she  asked  I  could  feel  her 
getting  down  through  the  dust  to  some  of  the  deeper 
feelings  here.  As  I  recounted  various  significant  little 
things  I  had  heard  from  these  big  dusty  sweating  boys, 
I  could  feel  her  making  them  a  part  of  her  own  dauntless 
vision.  All  the  dust  that  was  here,  I  thought,  would 
soon  drop  away  in  her  memories,  and  all  would  be  ideal 
ized  as  her  beloved  West  had  been.  And  I  was  glad 
that  it  was  so. 

But  our  thoughts  were  mainly  of  Tommy  that  day. 
His  regiment  was  camped  next  to  mine.  Soon  he  joined 

366 


BLIND  367 

our  little  group;  and  after  leaving  in  his  tent  the  choco 
late  and  cigarettes  and  other  gifts  from  his  family, 
young  Sergeant  McCrea  came  back  to  us.  In  every  word 
he  uttered  he  was  consciously  and  deliberately  and  very 
youthfully  commonplace.  He  did  not  propose  to  let  us 
think  that  he  felt  himself  a  hero  now.  To  remove  any 
possible  semblance  of  a  halo  from  his  close-cropped  head, 
Tommy  scratched  it  from  time  to  time  and  made  various 
jocose  remarks  which  his  mother  considered  "disgust 
ing."  But  we  who  knew  the  boy  so  well  could  feel  in 
the  conscious  genial  tone,  and  again  in  his  occassional 
brusque  and  self-absorbed  replies,  what  a  mere  youngster 
he  was  still — grimly  keeping  himself  in  hand,  not  allow 
ing  his  mind  to  dwell  upon  what  loomed  so  close  ahead, 
at  moments  half  exultant  and  eager  for  the  Big  Show 
over  there,  again  uncertain  and  afraid.  He  was  still 
inarticulate,  but  the  whole  honest  soul  of  him  was  grop 
ing  for  a  few  big  thoughts,  a  few  strong  driving  reasons 
as  to  why  all  this  must  be.  And  above  all,  "nerve" — no 
flinching! 

At  last  a  bugle  call  was  heard. 

"That  means  me,"  said  Tommy,  getting  quickly  to 
his  feet.  He  hesitated  for  a  moment.  "Well,  goodbye, 
Mumsy — see  you  soon."  One  after  the  other  he  kissed 
the  women,  with  a  gruff  goodbye  to  each.  For  an 
instant  he  gripped  his  father's  hand,  then  turned  to  do 
the  same  with  me,  and  caught  himself  only  just  in  time. 
He  reddened,  loudly  cleared  his  throat,  and  the  next 
moment  he  was  hurrying  off.  In  long  lines  the  com 
panies  were  forming  in  the  lanes  between  the  tents.  We 
watched  him  forming  his  platoon  into  their  place  in  the 
dusty  ranks;  and  for  a  moment  after  that  we  watched 
him  rigid  as  a  post.  Then  in  a  voice  abrupt  and  low, 
Lucy  said, 

"Let's  go  now,  Steve." 

I  walked  with  them  to  their  car  at  the  gate,  where 


368  BLIND 

after  another  round  of  goodbyes  they  left  me  to  go  back 
to  town. 


2. 

With  a  number  of  other  officers  I  embarked  the  day 
before  we  sailed.  Our  ship  was  one  of  the  big  fellows — 
it  took  nearly  ten  thousand  men  that  trip — and  to  my 
delight  I  discovered  that  Tommy's  regiment  was  on  the 
list.  I  telephoned  the  news  to  Steve,  and  he  succeeded 
through  the  Red  Cross  in  gaining  admittance  to  the 
pier.  He  came  down  that  evening,  and  for  some  time  we 
walked  in  the  big  shadowy  dockshed.  We  talked  very 
little.  From  time  to  time  more  troops  poured  in,  and  the 
big  keen  eyes  of  my  companion  kept  searching  the  faces 
as  they  came  bobbing,  lurching  by.  Still  no  Tommy. 
Our  huge  ship  was  already  swarming  with  brown-clad 
men,  and  under  the  hard  blue  quivering  glare  of  the  arc 
lights  more  brown  figures  were  pressing,  pressing  in  long 
files  slowly  up  the  gang-planks.  I  knew  how  Steve  felt 
for  this  only  son,  become  so  abruptly  one  of  the  mil 
lions  of  atoms  hurled  into  the  storm.  Steve  had  seen  so 
much  of  the  horrors  of  war.  It  had  aged  him.  Though 
his  powerful  figure  was  as  tall  and  erect  as  before,  there 
was  more  gray  about  his  temples,  heavier  markings 
beneath  his  eyes.  And  they  looked — deeper  into  things. 
All  at  once  he  gave  a  little  start,  and  then  stood  very 
quietly  watching  Tommy  pass  close  by  in  the  din  and 
confusion,  his  face  excited,  tired,  strained,  eyes  fixed  on 
two  smiling  women  serving  coffee  just  ahead.  Soon  he 
was  laughing  with  one  of  them,  as  she  filled  his  big  tin 
cup.  Then  he  pressed  on  up  into  the  ship. 

We  had  quite  a  hunt  till  we  found  him  there.  Because 
many  of  these  sons  of  the  land,  from  inland  cities,  towns 
and  farms,  had  never  seen  the  ocean  before,  to  each  one 
as  he  came  on  board  was  handed  a  card  which  gave  the 
location  of  his  bunk  and  named  the  various  parts  of  the 


BLIND  369 

boat.  And  as  they  searched  for  their  places,  the  whole 
vessel  seemed  to  shake  with  the  constant  tread  of  heavy 
feet.  It  had  a  naked  look,  this  ship;  but  it  teemed  and 
hummed  with  activities.  Through  long  narrow  passage 
ways  and  up  and  down  steep  flights  of  stairs  we  made 
our  way.  And  at  last,  deep  down  in  the  vessel,  in  a 
bunk-room  crowded  with  steel  framed  bunks  by  hun 
dreds,  four  tiers  high,  from  the  floor  close  up  to  the 
ceiling,  in  one  we  found  Tommy  sound  asleep.  It  was 
stifling  hot  down  here;  and  though  his  brown  shirt  was 
open,  his  neck  and  face  were  wet  with  sweat.  But  his 
respiration  was  long  and  deep,  and  he  was  snoring  peace 
fully. 

"No  use  in  waking  him  up,"  muttered  Steve.     For  a 
few  moments  he  stood  looking  down.     Just  as  he  was 
about  to  go,  with  a  sudden  toss  of  one  arm  and  a  snort, 
Tommy  opened  his  eyes,  saw  his  father  there,  blinked 
hprri  anc|  fast  jn  startled  surprise,  and  uttered  a  thick 
whisper : 
"Dad!" 
"Hello,  son." 

They  were  gripping  hands. 

"How  did  you  get  here  ?"  Tommy  asked.  For  a  time 
they  talked  in  whispers,  and  then  after  a  brief  hesitation 
and  obvious  struggle,  "Look  here,  old  man,"  Tommy 
blurted  out,  "there's  a  thing  I  meant  to  speak  about — 
and  didn't — couldn't  get  a  chance." 
"Say  it,"  said  Steve,  with  a  tense  smile. 
"Oh,  it  isn't  much.  It's  only  that — well,  I  just  want 
you  to  know  that  I'm  on  to  the  fact  of  how  you  feel. 
You'd  give  your  coat  and  pants  and  vest  for  a  chance 
to  be  with  us.  Darned  pity  you  can't."  Tommy  spoke 
in  a  low  hurried  tone,  scowling  down  at  his  father's 
crippled  hand.  "It's  your  own  fault,"  he  muttered.  "So 
long  as  you  would  be  a  surgeon,  and  cripple  your  hand 
in  time  of  peace — hero  of  peace — that  sort  of  stuff — " 


370  BLIND 

Tommy  grinned  to  show  he  was  joking — "you  can't 
expect  to  have  all  the  fun.  But  anyhow,"  he  added,  "if 
I'd  run  as  many  hospitals  in  this  war  as  you  have,  I 
guess  I'd  feel  I'd  done  my  bit.  Sorry,  though,  you  can't 
be  with  us.  ...  Gee,  how  hot  it  is  down  here!  Why 
the  devil  can't  the  War  Department  open  the  portholes 
while  we're  in  port!"  Tommy  was  more  natural  now. 
"Say,  Uncle  Larry,  don't  you  suppose  they'd  let  me  up 
on  deck  with  you,  just  for  a  couple  of  minutes  or  so?" 

We  went  on  deck.  It  was  cool  and  fresh — just  day 
break.  The  light  was  misty,  blue,  unreal.  Sharp  orders, 
and  long  gangs  of  men  at  the  huge  hawsers  on  the  pier. 
It  was  sailing  time.  Steve  left  us;  and  a  few  minutes 
later,  as  the  big  vessel  moved  slowly  out,  he  stood  in  a 
gangway  of  the  pier  looking  steadily  up  at  us,  with  a 
quiet  smile  that  reminded  me  of  the  days  when  Steve 
was  Tommy's  age  nearly  thirty  years  ago.  Suddenly 
he  was  swept  from  our  view,  and  now  I  grew  conscious 
of  Tommy's  big  hand  which  had  been  tightly  gripping 
my  arm.  He  let  go  and  cleared  his  throat.  Then  he  said 
a  bit  thickly, 

"Much  obliged,  Uncle  Larry,  for  fixing  it — getting 
me  up  on  deck,  I  mean."  He  looked  about  in  a  lost  sort 
of  way.  "Gee,  but  I'm  tired.  Me  for  the  slats." 

3. 

With  an  empty  let-down  feeling,  for  a  time  I  walked 
the  decks,  where  in  place  of  the  long  double  rows  of 
steamer  chairs  of  former  days  were  only  a  few  benches, 
and  not  even  these  were  occupied  long.  Nobody  seemed 
to  care  to  sit  down.  Soon  I  joined  the  restless  throng 
of  big-booted  boys  who  tramped  and  tramped  all  over 
the  boat — now  stopping  for  long  silent  stares  out  over 
the  rail  toward  the  shore-line  which  was  rapidly  sinking 
behind;  then  again  tramping,  tramping  on,  alone  or  in 
couples  or  larger  groups,  exploring  the  big  liner,  curious, 


BLIND  371 

prying,  laughing,  joking.  The  boat  had  been  built  by 
the  Germans,  and  in  the  narrow  passageways  the  painted 
panels  were  still  on  the  walls.  In  front  of  one,  a  floral 
design  rather  "Dutchy"  in  style,  I  saw  two  young  Bud 
dies  pause  with  an  air  of  determined  disapproval;  and  I 
heard  one  of  them  say  to  the  other, 

"You  know,  these  Germans  just  naturally  make  every 
thing  ugly  that  they  touch.  That's  a  hell  of  a  bunch  of 
pansies,  that  is !" 

And  the  pair  moved  slowly  on. 

I  came  to  what  in  peace  time  had  been  a  gorgeous 
dining  saloon.  Now  there  were  long  board  tables  there  at 
which  sat  boys  playing  checkers  or  cards  or  writing 
letters.  More  were  about  the  gramophones,  and  a  crowd 
was  singing  around  the  piano.  The  bunk  rooms  that  I 
visited  were  half  filled  with  sleepers,  but  in  one  an  anxi 
ous-looking  boy  was  scowling  over  ^a  notebook  and 
repeating  determinedly, 

"Je  vowdrais  oon  cigarette — je  vowdrais  oon  ciga 
rette " 

Close  by  lay  Tommy  in  his  bunk,  with  hands  locked 
behind  his  head,  scowling  and  staring  straight  above 
him.  Plainly  he  wished  to  be  alone. 

I  slept  the  greater  part  of  the  day.  When  I  came  out 
on  deck  that  night,  the  land  lights  were  already  gone,  and 
at  first  I  saw  only  a  dark  expanse — the  same  empty 
ocean  I  had  known  on  previous  voyages  during  the  war. 
But  as  my  eyes  grew  used  to  the  darkness,  looking  ahead 
and  then  behind,  with  a  sudden  start  and  thrill  I  dis 
covered  a  long  procession  of  blurred  misty  little  lights 
extending  off  into  the  night.  The  convoy  was  in  single 
file — a  dim  spectral  bridge  of  lights  reaching  out  across 
the  sea. 

I  remember  little  else  of  the  trip,  except  a  talk  with 
Tommy  one  day  when  the  voyage  was  nearly  at  an  end. 
I  had  seen  little  of  him  till  then;  I  could  feel  he  was 


372  BLIND 

avoiding  me.  Plainly  he  did  not  care  to  be  seen  making 
capital  of  the  fact  that  his  uncle  was  an  officer.  He  him 
self  was  one  of  the  crowd,  and  he  enjoyed  it  thoroughly. 
In  his  regiment  all  kinds  and  races,  rich  and  poor,  had 
been  thrown  together  and  rapidly  welded  into  a  mass, 
which  had  developed  a  life  of  its  own;  and  into  this  life 
Tommy  entered  with  a  genial  zest  and  vim.  They 
seemed  more  like  a  crowd  of  boys  off  to  some  big  college 
game.  Their  spare  time  was  filled  with  jokes  and  songs. 
They  joked  even  over  the  life-boat  drill.  And  how  they 
dozed  and  blinked  in  the  sun,  or  leaned  lazily  over  the 
rail  and  idly  spit  into  the  sea.  .  .  .  But  with  Tommy  one 
afternoon,  as  we  stood  at  the  rail  together,  I  asked  him 
to  give  me  his  idea  of  how  the  Buddies  looked  at  it  all. 
And  after  a  long  frowning  stare  out  over  the  ocean, 
Tommy  said: 

"I'll  tell  you,  Uncle  Larry — the  way  I  size  it  up  is  this. 
All  this  talk  about  how  we  are  going  to  make  a  new 
world — kind  of  heaven  on  earth,  so  to  speak — is  mostly 
trimmings  to  most  of  the  fellows.  They're  pretty  hazy 
about  it — they  don't  think  much,  they  haven't  time.  You 
know  the  life — how  it  has  been  in  camp — and  I  guess 
there'll  be  more'n  enough  to  do  when  we  get  over." 

He  stopped  for  a  moment.  Tommy  had  such  honest 
eyes. 

"Put  the  Kaiser  out  of  business,"  he  went  on  reflect 
ively.  "Then  the  Austrian  Emperor  What's-his-name — 
and  show  the  Turks  where  they  get  off.  And  after  that, 
use  all  our  pull  to  get  a  whole  bunch  of  good  free  coun 
tries  started  up  all  over  the  map.  Democracy?  Sure. 

But — "  again  he  stopped  and  his  voice  dropped  low 

"with  all  due  respect  to  the  President,  he  does  lay  it  on 
just  a  little  bit  thick  about  America,  doesn't  he  now?  Oh, 
it's  all  right,  I  suppose — good  for  morale — keeps  the 
whole  business  kind  of  way  up.  And  there's  a  whole 
lot  of  truth  in  it,  too.  I'm  not  knocking  my  country, 
understand — and  I'm  proud  of  it,  proud  as  hell — I'll 


BLIND  373 

bet  we're  a  whole  lot  decenter  than  any  other  country 
on  earth.  But  we  just  aren't  perfect — that's  what  I 
mean — never  were  and  never  pretended  we  were.  I 
used  to  listen  to  you  and  Dad  talk  about  that  year  in 
the  slums.  And  when  a  fellow  thinks  of  that — slums 
and  strikes  and  so  on — and  the  way  Aunt  Fanny  throws 
money  about — well,  we  aren't  angels — that's  what  I 
mean.  Take  young  Carrington.  What  in  thunder  does  he 
care  about  democracy?"  Here  again  Tommy  paused 
and  scowled.  "It's  a  complicated  business,"  he  said. 
"Take  Russia,  too,  on  the  other  hand.  From  what  you 
say  of  these  Bolsheviks,  there's  such  a  thing  as  being  too 
free — with  everybody  losing  his  head.  What's  Europe 
coming  to,  anyhow?  We  certainly  don't  want  to  be  like 
that.  And  so  I  say  when  you  try  to  stop  and  figure  what 
this  war's  about,  you're  up  against  a  mighty  big  ques 
tion! 

"But  that's  not  worrying  us  a  lot,"  he  continued,  in  an 
easier  tone.  "You  know  what  the  war  has  done  to  us? 
It  has  made  us  feel  like  kids  again." 

I  rshot  a  quick  startled  look  at  him.  There  he  stood, 
nearly  six-feet-two,  with  set  jaw  and  serious  eyes. 

"Take  my  case,"  this  man  went  on.  "I'd  just  about 
grown  up,  so  to  speak.  I  was  free  to  do  about  as  I  liked 
— smoke  and  so  on — think  for  myself.  And  it  was  the 
same  with  the  rest — we'd  all  begun  to  lead  our  own 
lives.  Then,  biffo,  zowie,  came  the  war  and  jerked  us 
in — and  we've  lost  our  lives."  He  suddenly  reddened. 
"I  mean,  we're  not  free.  You  know  how  it  has  been 
in  camp.  You're  a  drop  in  the  bucket,  ordered  around. 
Every  minute  of  your  day  is  your  country's.  You're 
fed  and  clothed — and  if  you're  not,  there's  no  use  kick 
ing — none  at  all.  You're  a  two-spot  and  your  life  is 
small.  The  war  has  happened  and  scooped  you  in.  So 
what's  the  use  of  worrying?  .  .  .  Anyhow,  that's  about 
how  we  feel — more  or  less,"  he  muttered. 

"That's  about  it,  son." 


374  BLIND 

And  we  lit  cigarettes. 

It  was  only  one  day  after  this  that  we  came  into  the 
danger  zone.  We  met  a  destroyer  that  morning,  our  own. 
Then  a  British  hydroplane  appeared.  The  rumor  spread 
that  an  enemy  U-boat  was  close  by,  and  the  tension 
quickly  deepened.  No  more  waiting,  no  more  guessing. 
Here  at  last  was  the  Big  Show.  And  it  was  as  though, 
from  the  continent  still  invisible  ahead,  a  great  grim 
inner  voice  had  come  out  to  meet  us,  and  of  every  man 
and  boy  on  the  ship  was  demanding, 

"Well,  son  ,  how's  your  nerve?" 

Of  our  two  days  in  England,  I  remember  only  crowded 
trains,  long  delays  and  hasty  meals  and  sleep  in  snatches. 
Late  at  night  we  embarked  for  France  on  a  little  boat 
that  wallowed  deep  in  the  trough  of  a  rough  nasty  sea. 
It  was  raining  hard,  and  the  seasick  Buddies  lying  in 
piles  on  the  crowded  decks  were  soaked  to  the  skin.  It 
was  pitch  dark.  But  as  in  the  early  morning  we  came  to 
the  shores  of  France,  the  heavy  rain  clouds  broke  away 
and  a  great  radiant  dazzling  sun  rose  over  the  hills  of 
Havre.  In  the  confusion  of  landing,  I  came  upon 
Tommy  and  gripped  his  hand. 

"Good  luck,  Tommy !" 

"Same  to  you !"    And  he  hurried  away. 

The  colonel  of  his  regiment  must  have  had  something 
of  the  dream  of  Aunt  Amelia  in  him  then.  For  he 
ordered  out  the  band,  and  up  along  a  winding  road  he 
took  his  regiment  into  the  hills,  toward  that  clear  glori 
ous  morning  sun,  to  the  tune  of,  "Mine  Eyes  Have  Seen 
the  Glory  of  the  Coming  of  the  Lord." 

And  that  was  the  last  I  ever  saw,  or  will  ever  see,  of 
Tommy. 


4. 

All  through  July  and  August,  my  regiment  was  bil 
leted  in  a  little  village  through  which  ran  a  long  straight 


BLIND  375 

road.  Close  by  the  road  was  a  railroad  track ;  and  along 
the  track  and  along  the  road  came  a  double  procession 
day  and  night — trains,  motor  lorries,  wagons,  carts; 
men,  provisions,  shells  and  guns.  But  the  village  seemed 
so  used  to  it  all,  and  took  it,  in  the  heat  and  dust,  as  it 
had  done  these  four  long  years.  How  hot  it  could  be  in 
that  tiny  town,  and  at  times  how  desperately  still.  Only 
one  store,  a  tobacco  shop,  and  two  dirty  little  cafes.  On 
either  hand  a  straggling  row  of  frame  and  stucco  dwell 
ings.  Behind,  a  level  landscape  dotted  with  tent  villages. 
Here  the  Yanks  soon  settled  down.  Gone  was  the  grim 
tension  now.  Curious  and  glad  to  be  here,  boasting  of 
what  they  would  do,  and  quickly  learning  a  few  words 
of  such  French  as  was  never  heard  before,  the  Buddies 
talked  and  laughed  with  the  girls  and  were  free  with 
their  money  at  the  cafes,  offering  it  in  handfuls  and 
joking  over  the  change  they  got.  But  soon  this  cheer 
fulness  disappeared.  They  grumbled  at  the  prices  and 
were  unutterably  bored  in  this  dull  little  place  with  its 
dust  and  heat. 

"I  thought  there  was  once  somthin'  said  about  our 
coming  here  for  a  war!"  growled  a  fat  little  Buddy  one 
day. 

There  were  growls,  not  only  against  the  French  but 
against  the  British  Tommies,  too,  who  as  they  passed 
through  the  place  made  ribald  jokes  at  our  expense.  The 
first  exhilaration  was  gone.  The  days  were  crowded  with 
hard  work,  and  it  was  amazing  how  quickly  these  lads 
settled  into  the  new  routine — of  work,  drill,  gossip,  jokes 
and  grumbles,  games — as  in  the  camp  at  home. 

Although  I  was  busy  as  the  rest  and  entered  into  the 
work  with  zest  as  a  relief  from  useless  thinking,  still 
there  were  times  when  memories  rose  of  what  I  had 
seen  in  the  last  four  years.  One  day  to  our  camp  came 
a  large  stout  chap  with  a  desperately  worried  air,  who 
confided  to  me  that  he  had  a  contract  to  write  the  his- 


376  BLIND 

tory  of  the  war.  So  far,  he  had  planned  for  some  forty 
large  volumes  and  was  organizing  a  staff  of  writers  all 
over  the  face  of  the  earth.  In  touch  with  him  by  mail 
and  cable,  these  men  were  gathering  great  stacks  of 
original  documents,  giving  all  the  causes  back  to  about 
the  time  of  the  Flood. 

"Even  Argentina's  part  is  so  damned  interesting  I" 
he  groaned. 

My  talk  with  him  brought  back  the  thoughts  of  how 
the  world  was  breaking  into  a  vast  confusion  now,  of 
which  the  war  was  but  a  part.  How  many  years  or 
generations  till  things  finally  settled  down?  A  new 
world  order  to  be  builded  out  of  the  turgid  chaos  here, 
in  other  wars  and  revolutions,  endless  talk  and  speeches, 
books,  political  campaigns  and  strikes.  .  .  .  Two  or  three 
times  with  the  officers  I  tried  to  talk  of  these  gropings 
into  what  the  war  would  bring;  but  I  found  little  inter 
est  in  such  ideas  or  vistas.  Here  was  only  the  daily 
grind ;  they  were  all  businesslike,  these  chaps ;  and  when 
evening  came  they  were  tired  out.  They  made  me  think 
of  other  men  who  long  ago  on  Broadway  had  come  to 
our  theatres  at  night  wanting  only  to  be  amused.  The 
tired  business  man  of  the  past  had  become  the  tired 
soldier. 

Early  in  August  came  a  change.  Into  the  dusty  vil 
lage  swept  the  new  tidings  from  the  front.  The  Huns 
had  been  stopped!  The  Big  Push  was  on!  The  tide 
had  turned,  and  now  at  last  the  war  was  rushing  to  its 
end !  The  effect  upon  us  was  deep  and  sharp.  Men  and 
officers,  old  and  young,  had  but  one  thought :  "Can  we 
get  there  in  time?"  I  was  caught  in  that  deep  eagerness, 
the  strain  kept  tightening,  tightening,  and  other  thoughts 
were  swept  aside.  When  at  the  end  of  another  month 
the  order  came  and  we  entrained,  as  the  crowded  cars 
moved  out  the  Buddies  all  began  to  sing.  And  there 
flashed  into  my  mind  the  picture  of  those  German  lads 


BLIND  377 

singing  "Heilige  Nacht"  on  Christmas  Eve.  Soon  we 
would  be  facing  their  line! 

From  that  night  on,  as  I  look  back,  it  is  all  a  blur 
in  my  memory — the  scattered  incidents  jumbled  in,  one 
upon  another.  Here  and  there  is  a  face  or  a  phrase  that 
caught  my  attention  at  the  time,  together  with  various 
names  of  towns,  villages  and  little  streams.  And  endless 
numbers  I  recall,  numbers  of  hills,  divisions,  regiments, 
batteries  and  guns;  and  names  of  officers  high  and  low, 
and  bits  of  orders  of  the  day. 

As  the  sun  set  over  a  level  plain,  out  of  the  west  came 
rushing  a  long  line  of  army  trucks,  fantastic  in  their 
camouflage  and  packed  with  husky  noisy  Yanks.  Two 
French  peasants  in  a  field  at  first  waved  caps  and  then 
threw  kisses — but  the  genial  Yanks  replied  derisively, 
with  thumb  to  nose.  .  .  .  Boom — boom — from  the  distant 
guns.  A  battalion  coming  back  from  the  trenches,  wip 
ing  from  their  faces  the  sweat  and  the  thick  yellow  dust. 
Some  lurched  by  as  though  asleep.  One  of  them 
stumbled  and  fell  on  his  shoulder,  uttered  a  quick 
startled  "Hell!"  and  got  up  and  hurried  back  into  line. 
.  .  .  We  met  small  groups  of  wounded  men,  with  hands 
or  arms  or  heads  bound  up,  and  others  limping  slowly 
along.  .  .  .  We  came  behind  a  long  low  hill  and  passed 
a  quiet  meadow  with  hundreds  of  graves  all  overgrown 
with  cornflowers,  poppies,  buttercups.  ...  In  the  deep 
ening  dusk,  the  distant  booms  changed  to  jarring  crashes 
now.  On  the  road  ahead  came  a  flash  and  a  roar — and 
I  saw  a  horse  screaming  and  kicking  up  dust  with  his 
hind  legs,  straining  hard  to  raise  his  head,  with  terror 
in  his  greenish  eyes.  .  .  .  But  again  we  left  the  noise 
behind.  Our  road  wound  through  deep  ravines  and  up 
long  wooded  hillsides.  And  in  a  dark  drizzling  rain 
we  came  to  a  spectral  hill  town  where  part  of  our  divi 
sion  had  been  billeted  for  the  night. 

After  that,  a  long  blank  in  my  memory. 


378  BLIND 

Then  a  dugout  in  a  hillside — a  long  delicious  sleep  in 
there — and  out  at  night,  feeling  like  a  new  man.  The 
muggy  drizzle  of  the  day  had  been  swept  away  by  a  cool 
strong  wind,  and  the  stars  were  glorious  in  the  sky.  It 
was  brilliant  in  the  valley  below,  with  rockets  white  and 
green  and  red,  and  the  sudden  flare  and  glow  of  guns. 
Crash  and  boom  and  crackle,  the  long  sharp  rattle  of  the 
machine  guns,  all  came  rolling  up  together  in  an  angry 
sea  of  sound.  From  one  of  our  batteries  close  above 
me  came  a  roar  that  shook  the  hill.  I  climbed  up  by  a 
steep  little  path  through  the  pines — and  what  I  did  there 
I  cannot  recall.  I  think  I  had  a  message  from  the  colonel 
down  below,  and  that  later  I  smoked  a  cigarette  with  the 
young  lieutenant  in  charge  of  the  guns.  I  must  have 
been  there  until  dawn,  for  I  have  a  picture  sharp  and 
clear  of  a  dwarfed  little  pine  in  the  first  raw  light,  its 
needles  silvery  with  dew,  and  a  sodden  old  bird's  nest 
clinging  to  one  of  its  wet  branches.  A  German  shell 
must  have  burst  close  by — for  there  was  a  dazzling 
flash,  and  up  sailed  my  little  tree  into  the  skies.  Some 
thing  seemed  to  crackle  and  crash  somewhere  deep 
inside  my  head.  Then  it  stopped  and  I  drifted  rapidly 
down  into  the  silent  dark.  Not  a  glimmer  or  a  sound. 


5. 

I  was  roused  by  a  headache  sharper  than  any  I  had 
ever  known.  I  heard  a  voice  and  opened  my  eyes — and 
they  opened  all  right,  but  still  there  was  nothing  but  the 
same  blackness  as  before.  I  felt  a  dull  pain  in  one  leg. 
"Easy  with  him,  easy  now."  I  felt  them  lift  me.  Then 
I  fainted.  ...  I  remember  an  ambulance  ride,  and  dress 
ing  times  when  the  pain  bit  in.  I  felt  a  hand  wiping 
the  sweat  from  my  forehead,  and  I  heard  a  woman's 
voice  as  she  jabbed  a  needle  into  my  arm.  Suddenly 
the  pain  was  gone.  I  lay  on  the  ground  in  the  cool 
outer  air  and  smiled  to  myself.  It  was  wonderful.  I 


BLIND  379 

heard  that  woman's  voice  again.  What  did  it  remind  me 
of?  Ah,  now  I  had  it— Dorothy — in  a  theatre  all  filled 
with  beds.  But  what  a  damn  fool  place  for  beds !  Now 
I  knew  I  was  out  of  my  head.  For  a  theatre — wait  a 
moment — yes,  a  theatre  was  a  place  filled  with  women 
in  evening  clothes!  "No,  sir — beds!  Packed  full  of 
'em!  Hell,  yes!  War!  Now Tyc  got  it  all  right!"  I 
gave  a  low  laugh  and  dropped  again  down  into  the 
soundless  dark. 

I  heard  voices  singing,  and  the  sound  took  me  career 
ing  up  to  the  stars.  Now  and  then  I  nearly  hit  one. 
Golly,  but  that  was  a  narrow  escape!  .  .  .  Queer  how  I 
could  soar  like  that,  and  yet  know  all  the  while  I  was 
on  a  train,  in  a  hot  narrow  bunk,  with  wounded  men 
and  boys  about.  I  could  hear  them  groan  and  swear  at 
times,  and  I  heard  a  chap  close  by  me  die.  I  heard  his 
rapid  gasping  breath,  with  now  and  then  a  "Betty, 
Betty!"  whispered  so  close  it  seemed  right  in  my  ear. 
All  at  once  his  breathing  stopped.  "He's  dead,"  I 
thought.  .  .  .  How  that  wretched  little  French  car 
bumped  and  lurched  as  it  bore  us  on.  And  my  body  was 
so  devilish  light  I  could  not  keep-  it  in  the  bunk.  Bump, 
bump,  bump — the  car  would  bump  me  up  again  into  the 
stars.  .  .  .  Once  I  came  down  to  find  it  still.  We  must 
have  been  at  a  station,  for  just  outside  my  window  I 
could  hear  an  old  French  woman  very  slowly  and  care 
fully  giving  somebody  her  special  receipt  for  soup  a 
I' onion.  I  listened  as  though  my  very  life  depended  on 
not  missing  a  word. 

Now  I  was  in  a  bed  with  sheets.  I  could  move  my 
limbs  to  cooler  spots,  and  I  smiled  with  a  drowsy  dull 
content.  The  pain  in  my  leg  was  half  asleep,  and  the 
ache  in  my  head  was  so  much  better!  If  only  that 
surgeon  would  leave  me  alone !  Once  when  he  came  and 
J  lay  waiting,  quivering,  tense,  I  heard  him  say, 

"A  long  thin  splinter  went  in  at  one  temple.     The 


380  BLIND 

eyes  tnemselves  are  not  affected.  The  trouble  is  in  the 
optic  nerve  region." 

Only  the  nerves !  So  that  was  it !  How  long  would  I 
be  blind,  I  wondered?  Then  the  dressing!  Then  the 
morphine!  These  were  the  two  big  events  of  my  day. 
The  dressing  once;  the  needle  twice.  Dorothy's  watch 
was  under  my  pillow,  and  the  chime  of  its  tiny  bells 
was  a  godsend  in  the  dark.  Slowly  I  became  aware,  in 
this  strange  new  inner  life,  that  my  other  ties  with  the 
outside  world  were  rapidly  growing  more  acute. 
Eagerly  I  sniffed  the  odor  of  coffee  or  of  cigarettes,  and 
the  slightest  whiff  of  tobacco  smoke  was  an  exasperating 
delight.  But  this  was  nothing  compared  to  what  my 
good  old  ears  were  up  to.  I  could  tell  the  step  of  the 
nurse  I  liked  from  the  creaky  tread  of  the  one  I  detested. 
I  grew  to  know  the  whole  life  of  the  ward  by  the  sounds. 
Some  were  loud  and  obvious,  but  others  that  came  in  the 
night  were  subtle,  low,  uncanny,  like  thoughts  drift 
ing  into  me.  I  began  to  grow  proud  of  these  ears 
of  mine.  I  won  five  dollars  on  a  bet  that  I  could  hear 
a  handkerchief  dropped  at  the  other  end  of  the  ward. 

Into  the  ward  every  day  or  so  came  fresh  arrivals 
from  the  front.  Hungrily  we  gleaned  from  them  the 
latest  news  of  the  Big  Push  that  was  throwing  the  Ger 
mans  out  of  France.  But  I  dreaded  the  nights  when 
these  chaps  came,  because  invariably  the  ones  who  had 
been  badly  wounded  raved  in  nightmares  like  lost  souls, 
with  savage  piercing  bestial  cries  that  came  without 
warning  out  of  their  darkness  into  mine.  Early  one 
evening  I  was  roused  by  a  commotion  in  the  next  ward, 
which  was  full  of  enlisted  men.  Our  nurses  were  called 
in  to  help,  and  soon  I  learned  that  the  boys  in  there  were 
being  moved  out  to  make  room  for  a  crowd  that  was 
coming.  I  caught  the  word,  "gassed."  My  mind  leaped 
back  to  Dorothy's  husband;  and  though  he  was  dead,  I 
grew  bitter  against  his  work  that  night.  For  through 


BLIND  381 

the  thin  door  to  my  sensitive  ears  came  a  stifled  bedlam 
of  groans  and  cries.  A  nurse  hurried  in  to  ask  for  help 
from  some  of  our  convalescents.  Two  young  Irish- 
American  second  lieutenants  followed  her  back;  and  all 
through  the  rest  of  the  night  I  could  hear  them  holding 
tight  in  their  arms  the  poor  devils  who  died.  Once  I 
caught  the  words: 

"All  right,  old  man — I'm  right  here  with  a  pencil  and 
paper.  .  .  .  What's  that?  .  .  .  I've  got  it.  Now  what 
next?" 

There  were  other  nightmares  in  that  place.  Thank 
God,  I've  forgotten  most  of  them.  The  days  and  nights 
wore  into  weeks,  and  I  grew  thoroughly  sick  of  it  all; 
tired  of  being  shut  up  in  my  head.  If  only  I  could  get 
out  through  my  eyes !  But  they  were  still  bandaged ;  and 
the  ache  above  them,  though  for  days  it  would  leave  me 
in  peace,  would  then  tackle  me  again  like  a  mean  vicious 
little  dog.  My  thinking  grew  bitter.  I  was  old.  While 
the  youngsters  around  me  quickly  recovered,  I  was  little 
better  than  before.  I  had  moods  of  a  desperate  hunger 
to  get  back  home  and  live  again,  start  something  dif 
ferent,  fresh  and  new! 

I  awoke  abruptly  one  afternoon,  straining  my  ears. 
What  had  I  heard?  I  caught  the  hum  and  murmur  of 
voices  from  all  over  the  ward,  an  occasional  laugh, 
someone  singing  a  song — but  that  was  only  old,  old 
stuff.  Why  had  I  wakened,  listening  so  ? 

"Who  spoke  to  me?"  I  asked  aloud. 

Then  I  felt  a  hand  on  mine,  and  I  heard  Tommy  speak 
my  name. 


6. 

Tommy  had  stopped  a  rifle  bullet  two  weeks  after  I 
was  hit,  on  the  same  sector  of  our  line,  where  the  Bodies 
were  slow  in  giving  way.  He  had  won  his  second 
lieutenant's  commission  only  a  few  days  before.  While 


382  BLIND 

leading  his  men  he  had  been  hit  and  had  pitched  into  a 
funk-hole  that  was  partly  full  of  gas.  A  wounded 
man  had  pulled  him  out  just  in  time  to  save  his  life; 
but  Tommy,  like  me,  had  been  left  blind.  In  the  hospital 
here,  however,  the  wound  in  his  shoulder  had  quickly 
healed.  These  kids,  what  quick  recoverers!  And  as 
for  his  eyes,  a  surgeon  had  told  him  the  chances  were  a 
hundred  to  one  that  he  would  soon  see  again.  Already 
out  of  the  dark  room,  though  he  still  wore  a  bandage, 
his  old  buoyancy  had  returned. 

"Golly,  what  damned  queer  glorious  luck,  our  getting 
together!"  Tommy  cried.  "I  thought  there  might  be 
some  fellows  I  knew,  so  I  got  the  nurse  to  read  me  the 
names  of  all  the  fellows  in  the  place.  And  when  your 
name  came  out  of  the  list,  I  had  a  riot  all  by  myself! 
So  here  I  am,  by  Jimminy !" 

Our  talk  that  day,  and  others  that  followed,  did  so 
much  to  buck  me  up  that  soon  I  was  getting  about  on  his 
arm.  Feeling  his  way  along  with  a  stick,  Tommy  called 
gayly  down  the  aisle, 

"Make  way  for  the  lame,  the  halt  and  the  blind!" 

Then  came  the  news  of  the  Armistice,  and  after  the 
celebration  that  night  we  thought  of  little  but  getting 
home.  The  days  dragged  on.  Why  this  delay?  And 
why  no  word  from  our  family?  There  had  been  not  a 
single  home  letter  for  weeks,  and  we  cursed  the  con 
fusion  of  government  mails.  Had  they  all  forgotten  us 
back  there? 


CHAPTER  XIX 

1. 

No,  they  had  not  forgotten  us;  but  it  was  not  until  late 
in  October  that  they  learned  we  had  been  wounded.  Up 
to  that  time,  one  letter  from  me  and  a  couple  of  post 
cards  from  Tommy  were  all  the  messages  that  reached 
home  of  the  many  we  had  written.  The  others  were 
either  lost  or  delayed.  Meanwhile,  despite  their  anxiety, 
the  life  of  the  family  had  gone  on. 

After  seeing  us  off  in  June,  life  sagged  dismally  for 
Steve.  Twice  he  tried  to  get  over  to  France,  but  his 
work  kept  piling  up  at  home.  Already  the  wounded  were 
coming  back,  and  the  big  receiving  hospitals  in  New 
York  were  still  in  confusion;  Steve  was  drawn  into  that 
work  and  was  soon  hopelessly  involved.  In  August, 
Aunt  Amelia  was  taken  suddenly  very  ill;  but  after  an 
anxious  period,  through  the  sheer  force  of  the  will  that 
was  in  her,  she  fought  her  way  back  into  life.  During 
her  brief  illness  my  father  was  almost  constantly  there, 
and  Steve  and  he  had  several  talks.  Dad  was  one  of 
those  whom  Steve  described  as  Lost  Americans.  For 
him  the  old  familiar  ways  and  standards  had  been  swept 
aside.  Government  officials  were  forever  coming  in  to 
interfere  with  his  business;  and  meanwhile  in  his  own 
war  work  he  found  himself  constantly  interfering  with 
the  business  of  other  men.  Half  consciously  he  was 
taking  part  in  radical  sweeping  changes,  and  vaguely 
aware  of  this  at  times,  he  confessed  to  Steve  his  uneasi 
ness  over  what  he  felt  was  ahead. 

But  no  such  grim  uncertainties  troubled  Aunt  Fanny 
or  Louise.  They  had  closed  the  place  in  Newport  and 

383 


384  BLIND 

were  spending  the  summer  in  town.  They  were  still 
working  hard  all  day,  but  as  a  rule  their  evenings  were 
free  for  the  dinners,  balls  and  pageants,  through  which 
patriots  like  themselves  were  doing  their  bit.  For  the 
pageants  Louise  was  in  great  demand;  she  was  always 
having  new  costumes  made.  One  night  she  was  a  Sister 
of  Mercy,  again  a  ragged  Belgian  girl,  and  again  the 
Spirit  of  France.  Once  she  was  perfectly  furious 
because  a  very  catty  friend  had  handed  her  "Portugal" 
as  a  part.  Europe  sent  many  Tories  here,  quite  a  few 
of  them  with  titles,  and  many  of  these  were  welcome 
guests  at  delightfully  informal  dinners  in  my  father's 
home.  Among  them  was  a  young  Britisher,  a  very 
decent  likable  lad,  who  had  been  wounded  several  times. 
Louise  and  he  were  soon  well  launched  in  a  promising 
love  affair. 

Young  Carrington  came  home  from  France  early  in 
September.  Having  been  slightly  wounded  and  sent 
back  to  help  train  troops,  he  was  welcomed  in  his  home 
like  a  young  god  come  down  to  earth.  And  his  war 
talk  had  no  nonsense  about  it.  Crush  the  Huns  and  then 
get  back  to  the  sunny  well  bred  world  that  they  had 
known  before  the  fight. ,  Moreover,  a  brief  talk  with 
him  left  Steve  with  the  impression  that  in  the  mind  of 
this  youngster  his  duty  toward  society  had  been  filled 
completely  for  the  remainder  of  his  life.  He  had  offered 
his  life  for  his  country,  and  thereby  had  justified  not 
only  his  own  existence  but  the  entire  old  order  of  things. 
To  preserve  it  was  his  one  thought  now.  With  the 
Huns  already  practically  licked,  he  proposed  to  devote 
his  energies  to  rooting  out  the  Huns  in  our  midst,  and 
the  sneaking  Bolsheviki,  too ! 

These  opinions  he  declared  on  a  visit  to  Aunt  Amelia, 
and  he  was  keenly  annoyed  by  the  presence  of  his  cousin 
Dorothy  there.  She  listened  with  a  look  in  her  eyes  that 
set  his  blood  to  boiling.  Quite  honestly  convinced  of  the 


BLIND  385 

truth  of  his  own  convictions,  he  went  to  such  extremes 
in  his  talk  that  at  last  in  a  sharp  quivering  voice  Dorothy 
interrupted.  The  Germans  were  no  worse,  she  cried, 
than  any  other  people  at  war !  France  and  England  had 
their  faults!  And  as  for  the  Russian  revolution,  it  was 
the  one  big  hope  for  the  world !  At  this  young  Carring- 
ton  got  up  and  remarked  that  she  ought  to  be  in  jail. 
Then  he  said  goodnight. 

But  Dorothy  did  not  have  a  good  night.  A  few  hours 
later  her  mother  telephoned  Steve  to  come  over  at  once ; 
and  he  found  her  nearly  out  of  her  mind.  This  cousin 
of  ours,  who  had  once  been  such  a  personal  lovable 
figure,  now  lay  on  her  bed  and  raved  against  life.  What 
was  the  use  of  living  in  such  a  perfectly  rotten  world? 
Let  them  shoot  her  and  be  done  with  it !  If  they  put  her 
in  jail,  she  would  go  insane ! 

"Don't  let  them!  Oh,  Steve,  I'd  go  mad!  It's  not 
death  I'm  afraid  of — I  want  to  die!  But  to  lose  my 
mind!  Oh  Steve— Steve !" 

He  held  her  steadily  for  a  while,  until  the  paroxysm 
passed. 

"Now  I'm  going  to  help  you,"  he  said,  "and  we're 
going  to  stick  together  as  close  as  we  were  in  Germany. 
But  I  won't  be  able  to  help  you  much  unless  you  do  just 
as  I  say.  You're  frightened  and  you  have  a  right  to  be ; 
you're  in  a  very  dangerous  state.  But  most  of  the 
trouble  comes  from  inside.  Nobody  is  going  to  put  you 
in  jail.  You're  either  going  to  stay  right  here  or  else 
come  over  to  Lucy  and  me.  In  a  way,  remember,  we're 
in  the  same  boat.  I'm  often  called  a  pro-German  because  ( 
of  the  work  we  did  over  there.  But  it  seems  so  very 
small,  such  talk,  compared  to  the  big  things  happening 
now.  In  your  case,  I'll  admit  it  has  been  worse — the 
things  they've  said  have  been  more  raw.  But  they're 
only  stings  on  the  surface.  The  real  trouble  is  beneath. 
And  we've  got  to  get  to  that — we've  got  to  have  it  out, 


38«  BLIND 

my  dear.  You're  too  big  a  person  to  have  come  to  this 
condition  through  such  little  stings.  What  are  they 
compared  to  the  things  we  saw?" 

Talking  quietly  by  her  side,  he  forced  her  mind  back 
through  the  horrors  day  and  night  in  that  old  German 
theatre,  until  they  came  to  her  husband's  death  and  his 
vision,  at  the  end,  of  the  only  thing  that  could  save  the 
world — a  determined  coming  together  of  all  liberal- 
minded  men  and  women  in  every  land,  to  build  a  new 
order  out  of  the  old. 

"That  is  the  one  big  hope,"  he  said.  "That  is  what 
our  kind  of  people  in  every  land  are  fighting  for." 

"But  you'll  be  beaten !"  she  broke  in.  "This  hating — 
it  has  gone  too  far !  Can't  you  remember  how  they  were 
in  Berlin — how  they  hated  England  ?  And  in  that  Prus 
sian  village — at  his  funeral!"  She  stopped  sharply  and 
seemed  to  shake  from  head  to  foot. 

"Yes,"  he  said  steadily,  gripping  her  hand.  "That 
funeral  was  the  deepest  root  of  all  this  trouble  you're 
having  now.  We've  got  to  the  bottom  at  last,  my  dear." 

"But  it's  spreading — I  tell  you  it's  spreading!"  she 
cried.  "I've  seen  it  rise  even  over  here,  where  we  had 
least  reason  or  excuse — no  millions  killed  or  wounded! 
We  might  have  been  the  very  ones  to  end  it — make  the 
hope  come  true!  Instead  we  are  the  very  worst  of  all 
the  haters  in  the  war!" 

She  was  back  again  at  her  starting  point.  In  vain  he 
argued  with  her,  and  he  realized  that  she  was  in  for  a 
pretty  serious  time.  Her  mother,  he  knew,  could  help 
very  little.  After  the  illness  she  had  been  through,  Aunt 
Amelia  was  in  no  condition  to  act  as  a  nurse  for  Dorothy  ; 
and  besides,  she  only  excited  the  girl.  So  Steve  took 
her  over  to  his  place  and  kept  her  in  bed  for  several 
weeks.  At  times  he  came  and  talked  with  her  or  sat 
quietly  by  her  side.  Lucy  slept  in  the  room  at  night. 
They  were  afraid  to  leave  her  alone. 


BLIND  387 

But  there  was  in  the  atmosphere  of  this  place  the 
same  feeling  that  existed  in  thousands  of  hospitals  all 
over  Europe  in  those  days.  The  hatred  and  hysteria, 
which  to  Dorothy's  half  crazed  mind  had  loomed  like 
a  black  specter  darkening  the  entire  earth,  was  here  like 
a  nightmare  left  behind.  For  these  recovering  men  and 
boys  were  turning  their  thoughts  away  from  the  war 
and  were  eager  to  get  back  to  their  homes.  In  the  room 
next  to  Dorothy's,  there  were  two  young  officers  who 
talked  at  intervals  all  day  long,  and  Dorothy  could  hear 
them.  They  swapped  stories  of  trench-life  and  dis 
cussed  by  the  hour  the  merits  of  various  guns  and 
generals.  They  had  been  keenly  interested  in  this  job 
of  killing  Germans ;  but  it  had  been  an  ugly  job.  They 
spoke  with  contempt  of  those  people  at  home  who  shouted 
about  the  glory  of  war.  They  were  devilish  glad  it  was 
near  an  end.  One  was  from  Minnesota  and  the  other 
from  Illinois;  one  had  worked  in  a  wood  pulp  mill,  the 
other  on  his  uncle's  big  farm.  And  they  talked  about 
farming  and  forestry,  and  girls  they  knew,  and  hoped  to 
God  they  would  get  home  for  Thanksgiving  dinner. 
Letters  from  home  were  read  and  discussed;  and  gifts 
arrived — among  them  a  ukelele.  The  chap  who  knew 
how  to  play  the  thing  gave  lessons  to  the  other,  and 
showed  how  much  handier  it  was  than  a  banjo  or  guitar. 

Listening  in  spite  of  herself  to  such  talk  as  this  day 
after  day,  my  cousin's  mind  began  to  relax;  her  sense  of 
proportions  began  to  change.  Then  came  the  news  of 
Tommy  and  me — and  something  broke  in  Dorothy.  For 
the  first  time  in  months  she  had  a  good  cry — she  and 
Lucy  together,  in  each  other's  arms.  And  only  a  few 
days  after  this  she  felt  abruptly  the  grip  and  urge  of  a 
sudden  sharp  emergency.  For  the  "flu,"  which  in  this 
country  was  to  cause  ten  times  the  death  and  desolation 
brought  by  the  war,  had  already  spread  throughout  the 
land.  Over-worked  as  he  already  was,  Steve  had  been 


388  BLIND 

drawn  into  the  fight.  Worn  out  at  last  from  the  double 
strain,  he  himself  contracted  it  and  reached  home  danger 
ously  ill.  Pneumonia  developed,  and  on  the  fourth  day 
he  nearly  died.  Meanwhile  it  had  broken  out  among 
the  patients.  There  were  some  thirty  cases,  and  things 
looked  desperate  for  a  time.  With  Steve's  assistant 
doctor,  Lucy  bravely  held  the  fort.  She  worked  and 
never  seemed  to  tire,  and  she  told  me  that  everyone  else 
who  was  not  sick  was  doing  the  same. 

"Everyone  helped  each  other,  those  days.  It  was  very 
wonderful,"  Lucy  said. 

But  to  return  to  Dorothy.  In  those  desperate  days  and 
nights,  Lucy  had  forgotten  her — until  one  evening  she 
appeared  and  said, 

"I'm  well  now,  Lucy — and  I  want  to  help  you." 
:     Soon  she  was  busy  as  the  rest. 

Steve  recovered  rapidly.  As  he  told  me  later  on, 
recovery  was  in  the  air.  The  epidemic  was  dying  down; 
and  as  for  the  war,  the  end  of  it  was  now  only  a  matter 
of  days.  Revolution  in  Germany  at  last!  If  it  proved 
to  be  real  and  they  set  up  a  decent  free  republic,  and 
we  stood  by  our  big  ideals  and  could  bring  the  Allies  to 
do  the  same,  there  would  be  such  a  chance  as  never  before 
in  all  the  ages  to  build  up  such  a  new  world  order  as 
would  make  the  terrible  sacrifice  worth  while.  Too  good 
to  be  true?  But  it  did  seem  true  in  those  wonderful 
days !  Every  hour  the  news  poured  in.  Then  one  night 
came  a  cable  from  Tommy: 

"Home  in  two  weeks.    Doing  fine." 

Lucy  ran  with  the  message  into  Steve's  room. 


2. 

Tommy  got  home  just  in  time  for  Thanksgiving,  and 
I  came  a  week  or  so  after  that. 

My  blindness  made  a  difference,  but  not  so  much  as 
one  might  think.  For  I  had  acquired  super-ears.  I 


BLIND  389 


did  not  see  the  harbor,  but  I  could  hear  it  from  down  the 
Bay.  As  we  came  up  through  the  Narrows,  I  heard  the 
distant  bursts  of  cheers;  and  suddenly  I  had  it  all — the 
crowded  basin  and  its  shores,  the  hills  of  Staten  Island, 
the  Liberty  statue  far  ahead  and  the  tall  buildings  of 
Manhattan.  Our  big  ship  covered  with  little  brown  men 
moved  slowly  up  the  River  now.  Another  burst  of 
cheers  from  a  ferry.  I  took  off  my  cap  and  yelled  with 
our  boys.  It  was  good  to  be  home ! 

At  last  we  drew  in  to  the  dock.  And  though  I  did 
not  see  Steve  and  Dad,  I  heard  their  two  voices  clear 
and  distinct  rise  out  of  the  tumult  of  welcome  below. 
A  few  minutes  later  on  the  pier  I  heard  a  splendid  bit 
of  news.  I  had  dreaded  another  hospital,  but  Steve  had 
been  able  to  arrange  to  take  me  directly  out  to  the  coun 
try.  We  were  to  go  that  afternoon. 

I  did  not  see  Fifth  Avenue,  but  I  heard  it — vividly — 
the  women's  voices,  chatter,  laughter,  gay  quick  cries, 
the  roll  of  wheels,  the  grind  of  brakes,  the  soft  thunder 
of  the  engines,  the  tread  and  shuffle  and  patter  of  thou 
sands  of  booted  and  slippered  feet.  Coming  from 
Russia,  I  had  thought,  "What  a  vulgar  town  it  is."  This 
time  I  did  not  think  at  all ;  I  was  simply  glad  to  be  home. 
It  seemed  to  me  as  though  for  years  I  had  been  living 
tense  and  taut.  Now,  the  relapse;  the  slump  was  on. 
I  stopped  for  an  hour  or  so  to  rest  in  Dad's  big  luxuri 
ous  house,  with  Aunt  Fanny  to  give  me  the  petting  I 
wanted, 
i  "Oh  Larry,  dear,  I'm  so  glad  you  are  back !" 

I  wanted  a  lot  of  just  such  talk.  And  damn  it,  why 
not?  I  had  earned  it!  I  leaned  far  back  in  the  cosy 
chair  and  felt  the  glow  of  the  fire.  Would  I  have  a 
second  cup  of  tea?  I  would,  and  a  little  more  rum  in  it, 
please ! 

But  it  was  better  still,  when  we  motored  out  to  the 
country  that  day,  to  feel  Lucy  come  into  my  arms,  to 


390  B  L-I  N  D 

grip  Tommy's  hand,  and  other  hands — God  only  knows 
how  many — that  reached  out  from  every  side  and  wel 
comed  me  back  to  the  joy  of  my  home.  Nobody  spoke 
of  my  being  blind — but  later,  as  Dorothy  said  good 
night,  her  hand  closed  tight  on  mine  and  she  whispered, 

"Oh,  Larry!    Steve  says  you  are  going  to  see!" 

A  warm  vital  current  of  life  went  tingling  all  through 
me.  Early  to  bed  for  a  long  long  rest,  with  the  crunch 
of  feet  on  the  snow  outside,  a  voice  now  and  then,  the 
distant  bark  of  a  dog  and  a  bell  from  the  village.  I  pic 
tured  the  hillside,  white  and  still,  the  black  outlines  of 
the  trees  against  a  big  round  rising  moon,  and  the  twink 
ling  lights  in  the  valley  below. 

For  several  long  days  and  nights  I  rested,  drowsily 
content.  I  came  suddenly  out  of  that  with  a  sharp  sur 
prising  restlessness  and  vague  anticipation,  hunger  for  I 
knew  not  what.  I  wanted  people,  people  I  knew;  I  had 
long  talks  with  Dorothy,  and  Lucy  and  Steve>  and  with 
my  Aunt  Amelia.  Though  she  did  not  ask  me  to  tell 
her  of  France,  I  could  feel  her  eagerness  to  learn ;  and  so 
one  day  I  started  in.  In  the  picture  that  I  painted,  uncon 
sciously  I  tried  to  bring  out  what  I  knew  she  wanted  to 
hear.  Nor  did  I  find  this  difficult.  For  in  spite  of  the 
blunders  and  needless  petty  tyrannies,  there  had  been  in 
truth  a  miracle  in  our  armies  over  there.  This  miracle 
was  the  record  of  how  the  American  doughboy,  in  heat 
and  dust,  in  mud  and  rain,  in  bloody  sweat,  against  shot 
and  shell,  had  fought  and  endured  for  this  great  cause 
of  which  he  said  so  little.  And  Aunt  Amelia  was  satis 
fied. 

Learning  that  she  was  planning  for  such  a  Christmas 
at  Seven  Pines  as  we  had  not  had  in  years,  in  my  new 
restless  eager  mood  I  entered  into  the  preparations  with 
an  exaggerated  zeal;  and  as  in  those  summers  of  long 
ago,  Dorothy  was  my  right  hand  and  my  fellow  con 
spirator.  I  must  have  gifts  for  everyone,  so  she  took  me 


BLIND  391 

in  to  town  to  shop.  Then  back  I  came  to  Seven  Pines 
to  help  with  the  holly  and  mistletoe.  For  all  such  work, 
as  in  days  of  old,  I  was  a  treasure,  she  declared.  I  was 
so  very  conveniently  tall,  I  could  hold  a  wreath  so  high ! 
...  It  was  an  immense  relief  to  me  to  find  how 
Dorothy  had  changed.  Not  that  she  was  converted  from 
the  views  she  held  before.  She  was  simply  so  glad  the 
war  was  over,  that  Tommy  and  I  v/ere  safely  home,  and 
that  her  old  spectre,  hatred,  seemed  to  be  losing  its  grip 
on  the  world.  The  people  were  rising  in  many  lands; 
democracy  was  coming!  Gladly  I  agreed  with  her,  for 
I  was  in  the  mood  those  days  to  believe  in  anything  good ; 
and  it  was  so  good  to  be  back  again  on  the  old  warm 
intimate  terms  with  this  delightful  cousin  of  mine.  We 
laughed  as  we  worked,  and  she  bossed  me  about.  Once 
when  I  stumbled  she  caught  my  hand,  and  after  a  tense 
little  silence  she  said  very  quietly, 

"I'll  be  so  glad  when  you  can  see.  Now  let's  put  some 
green  up  over  that  door." 

As  the  members  of  the  family  began  to  arrive  on 
Christmas  Eve,  I  started  a  family  confab  over  the  effects 
of  the  war  in  this  and  other  countries.  Eagerly  Aunt 
Amelia  joined  in  our  discussion.  And  she  was  so  hungry 
for  assurance  of  wide  happy  vistas  opening  into  the 
future,  that  the  others  did  their  best  to  give  her  what 
she  wanted.  But  the  gap  was  so  obvious  and  deep 
between  the  views  of  Aunt  Fanny  and  Dad,  and  of  Lucy, 
Steve,  Dorothy  and  me,  that  by  tacit  consent  the  discus 
sion  was  stopped — Dad  remarking  grimly, 

"I'm  sick  and  tired  of  world  events.  And  if  the 
world  can't  understand  that  it  has  intruded  long  enough 
outrageously  into  my  private  life — well,  so  much  the 
worse  for  the  world!  It  will  simply  have  to  be  shown 
the  door!" 

Now  came  the  Christmas  tree,  the  gifts,  the  old 
familiar  hubbub  of  cries;  and  after  supper  we  all  sang 


392  BLIND 

Aunt  Amelia's  favorite  songs.  On  the  ride  back  with 
Steve  and  his  family,  something  went  wrong  with  his 
engine.  We  stopped  for  a  moment.  Sleepy  remarks, 
then  silence,  and  there  came  to  my  ears  the  crackle  of 
the  frosty  ground,  the  tinkle  of  icicles  on  a  fence  and  the 
bells  of  a  distant  sleigh.  And  a  vivid  picture  came,  and 
I  turned  my  face  up  to  the  stars. 


3. 

In  the  two  weeks  that  I  had  been  home,  Tommy  and  I 
had  come  closer  to  each  other  than  ever  before ;  and  this 
great  husky  lovable  kid  was  a  perfect  Godsend  in  the 
dark.  We  developed  various  words  and  phrases  that 
nobody  understood  but  ourselves.  How  could  they  under 
stand,  those  others?  Poor  devils  with  eyes,  how  could 
they  know  how  it  felt  to  have  such  ears  as  ours,  such  a 
sense  of  touch,  "such  smellers,  by  Golly!"  Tommy 
proudly  boasted  of  these  great  advantages;  and  he 
caused  it  to  be  understood  that,  though  we  would  soon 
regain  our  sight,  it  was  good  fun  nevertheless  to  act  as 
though  we  should  always  be  blind,  and  learn  to  live  with 
out  our  eyes.  We  soon  managed  to  get  about,  not  only 
indoors  but  all  over  the  hillside.  We  made  explorations, 
arm  in  arm,  with  Tommy's  old  dog  hitched  to  a  string. 
We  learned  to  shave  and  tie  our  scarfs.  Tommy  tried 
the  carpenter  shop,  and  I  my  old  typewriter;  and  to  my 
delight  I  discovered  that  I  could  manage  fairly  well. 
Closer  and  closer  we  drew  together  into  a  world  that 
was  all  our  own. 

But  a  little  after  Christmas  I  felt  a  change  in  Tommy. 
The  easy  intimate  comradeship  was  gone.  In  his  voice 
I  could  feel  an  awkwardness,  an  anxious  vigilant 
reserve  and  preoccupation.  For  the  bandage  was  now  off 
his  eyes;  and  as  the  old  familiar  world,  blurred  and 
queer  in  those  first  days,  began  to  appear  before  him, 
mingled  with  his  joy  and  relief  was  a  sharp  regret  and 


BLIND  393 

embarrassment.  He  was  figuring  desperately  on  how 
he  was  to  break  the  news.  Meanwhile,  quite  uncon 
sciously,  he  did  it  through  his  grip  on  my  arm.  For  by 
degrees  I  could  feel  that  grip  carefully  steering  me 
along.  Then  one  day  with  a  quick  jerk,  Tommy  said, 
"Look  out,  old  man!"  And  a  moment  later  my  foot 
struck  a  stone.  In  the  little  talk  that  followed,  I  tried 
to  tell  him  how  glad  I  was ;  but  men  are  selfish  animals, 
and  it  was  a  damnable  time  for  me  as  I  felt  that  kid 
slip  out  of  our  darkness.  Later  he  left  to  go  to  school, 
and  one  by  one  the  other  war  patients  said  goodbye  and 
went  away.  I  could  feel  the  world  pick  up,  move  on. 
I  had  been  scrapped  and  thrown  aside. 

Should  I  ever  see  again — or  was  the  hope  which  Steve 
held  out  merely  a  tonic  to  keep  me  up  until  I  could  be 
told  the  truth?  As  the  weeks  wore  into  months,  there 
came  to  me  a  bitterness  I  do  not  like  to  think  of  now. 
Millions  of  people,  I  suppose,  were  feeling  that  after- 
the-war  slump.  In  my  case  it  was  pretty  desperate — 
ugly,  sharp  and  morbid. 

I  remember  the  parade  of  our  Division  in  New  York. 
At  first  I  thought  I  would  not  go,  but  at  the  last  I 
changed  my  mind,  for  I  craved  excitement.  On  the 
train  I  pictured  how  it  would  be.  But  as  we  came  up 
the  Avenue,  I  heard  very  little  excitement.  Looking 
back  upon  it  now,  I  cannot  blame  those  stolid  crowds. 
The  thing  had  not  been  dramatized.  In  the  next  parade 
they  staged  it  right.  With  captured  guns,  with  tanks 
and  floats,  machine  guns  rattling,  rockets  shooting  and 
gas  clouds  of  vivid  hues,  they  made  a  roaring  flashing 
pageant — and  the  New  York  crowds  went  wild.  But 
in  our  case  there  was  no  show,  nothing  but  monotonous 
files  of  men  and  boys  who  had  fought  in  France.  And 
though  all  along  the  line  were  scattered  bursts  of  cheer 
ing  from  groups  of  friends  and  relatives,  the  big  crowd 
soon  grew  dull  and  cold.  They  were  sick  and  tired  of 


894 


BLIND 


world  events.  Back  to  business  as  usual,  back  to  their 
old  normal  lives.  But  with  me  in  an  ambulance  sat  five 
youngsters  who  were  blind,  who  saw  no  normal  lives 
ahead,  not  even  the  certainty  of  a  job.  And  as  like  me 
they  listened  to  that  apathy  along  the  lines,  the  eager 
gay  excitement  with  which  they  had  begun  the  day  died 
out  of  their  voices.  There  were  frequent  halts,  and  at 
such  times  we  had  ears  so  devilish  acute  that  in  those 
apathetic  crowds  we  could  hear  all  kinds  of  side 
remarks.  Two  men  with  harsh  incisive  voices  were  dis 
cussing  a  business  deal;  a  couple  of  shop-girls  were 
absorbed  in  talk  of  some  corsets  they  meant  to  buy. 
There  were  little  critical  remarks. 

"How  much  more  of  it  is  there?"  somebody  asked. 
And  we  heard  a  man  say  to  his  wife, 

"It's  one  forty-five.     How  about  dinner?" 
Then  the  blind  boy  next  to  me  muttered, 
"Go  on  back  to  your  dinners,  God  damn  you  I" 
And  another  disappointed  kid  said  simply. 
"Gee,  but  it's  hell  to  be  home." 

Farther  up  the  Avenue  there  was  more  cheering  to  be 
heard,  and  the  boys  brightened  up  a  bit.  But  I  was 
deeply  bitter  still.  The  hardships,  all  the  pluck  and 
nerve,  the  patient  grim  endurance,  to  which  I  had  been 
a  witness  in  France,  rose  up  in  my  memory  here;  I 
remembered  how  on  stifling  roads  or  on  beds  of  long, 
long  agony  I  had  heard  the  Buddies  say,  "Just  you  wait 
till  we  get  home!  There'll  be  something  coming  to  us 
for  all  this !"  And  I  cursed  these  people  who  were  bored, 
who  had  lost  so  little  in  the  war  and  were  now  going  on 
so  comfortably  with  their  fat  dull  regular  lives.  I 
was  bitter  against  profiteers,  and  against  the  new  era  of 
glitter  and  flash  I  could  feel  coming  back  on  the  Avenue. 
It  was  only  a  little  after  this  that  I  listened  to  the 
wedding  of  my  young  half-sister,  Louise.  I  had  not 
expected  to  go  at  first,  but  Lucy  inveigled  me  into  it, 


BLIND  395 

and  I  motored  in  with  Steve  and  herself.  On  the  ride 
our  minds  went  back  to  the  night  when  Steve  had 
brought  Louise  into  the  world.  And  the  irony  of  that 
occasion  was  enlarged  by  the  present  event.  The  world 
made  safe  for  democracy.  Oh,  ye  ancient  gods  and 
devils,  what  a  smile  for  you  this  day !  In  the  church  my 
ears  gave  me  the  scene,  and  I  thought,  "There's  a  billion 
dollars  here."  Then  that  billion  dollars — in  furs,  gowns, 
jewels,  in  uniforms,  in  boots  and  spurs,  with  decorations, 
titles  imported  from  abroad — poured  into  Aunt  Fanny's 
home;  and  they  had  a  wedding  breakfast  that  would 
have  made  a  starving  Europe  smack  its  lips  and  strain  its 
eyes  with  a  rather  crazed  intensity,  as  it  looked  upon 
this  land  of  the  free. 

I  did  not  need  to  mix  in  the  crowd;  from  my  father's 
den  I  could  hear  it  all.  And  as  the  vibrant  hubbub  of 
voices,  laughter,  sudden  cries,  the  Jazz  music  and  the 
scent  of  many  roses  and  perfumes  came  drifting  in,  it 
seemed  to  me  as  though  I  had  the  picture,  not  only  of 
these  wedding  guests  but  of  the  very  souls  of  them. 
Cold,  hard,  cynical?  Not  at  all.  Warm,  exultant,  vic 
tory  blind,  cocksure  of  their  fine  patriotism,  relieved 
that  certain  foolish  but  rather  dangerous  messages  that 
had  come  out  of  the  White  House  of  late,  concerning 
the  New  Freedom  and  the  Brotherhood  of  Mankind, 
were  already  melting  into  thin  air.  The  war  was  over 
and  we  were  back — back,  thank  God,  in  the  same  old 
pleasant  gentleman's  world,  which  was  safe  for  a  billion 
dollars  still! 

There  was  a  glow  and  a  kick  to  it  all,  like  the  glass  of 
champagne  I  took  that  day.  Some  of  the  young  people 
were  dancing  now,  and  I  wished  I  could  do  a  bit  of  that. 
But  I  was  booked  for  another  role.  From  time  to  time, 
Aunt  Fanny  or  Dad  would  bring  back  into  the  den  some 
body  who  wanted  to  grip  my  hand.  I  was  a  hero.  I  was 
one  of  the  sons  and  brothers  and  husbands  who  by  get- 


396  BLIND 

ting  killed  or  crippled  had  justified  our  right  to  all  this ! 

Young  Carrington  was  another.  He,  too,  had  stopped 
a  bullet  in  France.  Again  and  again  there  came  to  my 
ears  the  gay  tone  of  his  voice  as  he  hurried  about.  He 
was  running  this  show.  Deeply  fond  of  Louise  and  his 
mother,  he  was  resolved  in  his  practical  soul  that  this 
wedding  should  be  as  happy  a  time  as  he  could  make  it. 
When  at  last,  with  a  sudden  bursting  tumult  of  voices 
and  laughter  in  the  hall,  the  bride  and  groom  departed, 
and  the  guests  soon  went  away,  young  Carrington  came 
back  to  smoke  in  the  den  with  Dad  and  Steve  and  me. 
And  as  we  talked  of  the  wedding  and  of  his  mother 
and  sister,  I  felt  that  this  lad  would  shoot  to  kill,  to  pro 
tect  them  in  their  property. 

He  spoke  of  the  raids  against  the  Reds,  in  New  York 
and  other  cities.  These  were  only  a  starter,  he  said. 
He  himself  was  working  hard  at  the  job  of  re-adapting 
our  father's  mills  to  the  needs  of  peace;  but  there  was 
war  in  Carrington's  tone  as  he  grimly  joked  at  Dad's 
policy  of  conciliating  the  men.  Fight  every  strike,  root 
out  every  Red,  hit  every  union  between  the  eyes!  That 
was  Carrington's  advice.  And  the  great  mass  of  the 
workmen  could  soon  be  brought  into  line,  he  declared. 
Nothing  the  matter  with  the  men,  if  agitators  would 
leave  'em  alone.  Hadn't  he  seen  in  the  army  how  they 
responded  to  discipline?  And  it  could  be  the  same  in 
peace.  He  loved  machines  and  the  forging  of  steel,  and 
in  the  very  soul  of  him  he  was  convinced  that  all  men 
were  the  same.  I  could  almost  see  him  as  he  talked — 
small,  straight,  hard,  clean-cut  and  keen,  pleasant,  loyal 
to  his  friends,  shrewd,  practical  and  obstinate — a  strong 
recruit  to  the  Tories  here.  "For  my  country  and  my 
family,  and  our  right  to  what  is  ours."  With  this 
slogan  he  was  starting  in.  How  far  would  he  go?  It 
was  hard  to  tell.  But  that  afternoon  it  seemed  to  me 


BLIND  397 

as  though  there  were  thousands  like  him  springing  up' 
all  over  the  land. 

From  time  to  time  my  father  threw  in  a  brief  com 
ment,  and  by  the  sound  of  his  voice  I  could  tell  he  was 
feeling  blue  and  lonely.  It  was  not  only  that  his  daugh 
ter  was  gone;  it  was  the  realization  that  he  himself  had 
felt  and  looked  and  acted  old  all  through  the  wedding. 
Young  Carrington's  talk  disturbed  him,  too.  Anxiously 
he  looked  ahead  and  saw  trouble  brewing  on  every  side. 
His  old  world  had  not  come  back.  Even  in  his  own  mills 
he  could  sense  something  new.  In  spite  of  his  son,  he 
had  settled  one  strike,  but  he  expected  others.  For  there 
was  something  new  in  the  air,  he  said,  in  a  puzzled  tone. 
Disturbing  tips  had  come  to  him  concerning  the  radical 
movements  sweeping  over  Europe. 

"How  the  devil  can  we  stave  'em  off,  with  the  world's 
exchange  in  such  a  state?  No  sound  credit  anywhere, 
no  sense  of  anything  under  your  feet.  Problems  crop 
ping  up  on  all  sides — and  people  not  facing  'em,  going 
it  blind!  The  fact  of  the  matter  is,"  he  said,  "that  we're 
like  men  standing  on  a  bridge  that  we  are  building  as 
we  go.  Our  backs  are  to  the  sunny  side,  and  there's 
nothing  but  thick  fog  ahead." 

Mine  Eyes  Have  Seen  the  Glory  of  the  Coming  of 
the  Lord. 

Poor  old  Aunt  Amelia. 


CHAPTER   XX 

1. 

BLIND  for  life!  Or  would  I  see?  Back  in  the  coun 
try  with  Lucy  and  Steve,  I  grew  terribly  depressed.  In 
vain  they  tried  to  give  me  hope  that  my  sight  would  be 
restored.  I  thought  that  I  knew  better.  The  old  pain 
above  my  eyes  would  tackle  me  viciously  again,  and 
down  I  would  plunge  into  the  dark. 

Gloomy  writing  this,  you  say?  Then  let  me  remind 
you  that  I  write  not  of  myself  alone  but  of  a  million 
others  in  this  country  and  abroad — wrecks  of  the  war 
who  cannot  die.  And  if  you  were  in  favor  of  the  war, 
if  you  pledged  yourself  to  those  great  ideals,  then  it 
will  not  do  you  harm  to  think  of  these  men  who  are  pay 
ing  the  price.  I  was  more  lucky — I'm  happier  now;  but 
many  of  them  are  still  in  that  black  slough  of  despond 
where  they  have  been  left — forgotten! 

In  my  bitter  mood  those  days  the  thought  of  these 
men  and  the  millions  dead  became  an  obsession;  and  in 
their  name  I  demanded  of  the  living  what  they  were 
doing  to  make  it  worth  while.  The  great  mass  of  the 
people  here  had  sunk  back  into  their  little  lives;  while 
over  there  where  we  had  fought,  Civilization  was  break 
ing  down,  amid  forces  so  overpowering  that  what  each 
one  of  us  pigmies  did  seemed  no  longer  of  any  account. 
What  had  I  left  to  live  for?  At  times  I  tried  to  hide 
my  gloom  from  the  rest  of  the  family,  and  for  the 
moment  I  would  respond  to  their  obvious  efforts  to  cheer 
me  up.  But  again  I  would  rebel  against  that.  It  seemed 
so  false.  They  had  their  lives  and  were  eager  to  live 
them.  Then  in  God's  name  leave  me  alone  I  My  melan- 


BLIND  399 

cholia  increased,  and  with  it  their  anxiety.  A  family 
conference  was  called,  with  the  result  that  Aunt  Amelia 
asked  me  over  to  Seven  Pines. 

So  I  came  back  to  this  old  house,  but  at  first  it  did 
little  to  help  me.  In  the  daytime  it  was  not  so  bad. 
There  were  various  small  distractions  and  events  to  fill 
the  time.  Half  consciously  I  grew  interested  in  learn 
ing  to  find  my  way  about ;  I  had  a  sharp  repugnance  for 
being  dependent  on  others.  But  I  dreaded  the  long 
nights  alone.  From  the  days  when  I  had  worked  on  a 
paper,  I  had  always  been  an  owl.  Though  I  had  learned 
to  sleep  in  the  army,  I  returned  to  my  old  habits  now; 
and  the  pain  in  my  head  came  back  again;  and  in  the 
silence  of  the  night,  this  house  that  I  could  no  longer  see, 
that  had  lost  all  outer  aspect  and  become  an  inner  pres 
ence,  seemed  like  a  pathetic  old  friend.  In  vain  it  tried 
to  carry  my  mind  back  over  the  forty  odd  years  of  my 
life. 

"It  is  not  finished.  As  then,  so  now,  you  will  go  on," 
it  seemed  to  say. 

"No,"  I  replied,  "I'm  done  for.  And  so  are  you, 
Democracy.  The  world  has  cast  us  both  aside." 

I  would  lie  awake  in  the  darkness,  my  fancy  making 
leaps  at  times  across  the  sea — to  the  grim  old  palace  in 
Petrograd  filled  with  surging  crowds  of  men,  Oberoo- 
koff  and  his  mother  in  the  lonely  village,  and  the  old 
Prince  with  his  family  marooned  upon  their  large  estate. 
In  the  prodigious  chaos  there  how  many  were  still  left 
alive?  I  remembered  others  I  had  known,  in  Germany, 
France  and  England,  the  men  and  boys  who  had  paid 
the  price.  And  in  my  bitter  darkness  half  mad  I  had 
long  talks  with  them.  Often  they  came  to  me  in  my 
dreams — both  the  living  and  the  dead — Max  Sonfeldt 
with  his  tragic  eyes,  and  the  Galician  peasant  who  had 
begged  us  for  his  boots;  and  the  young  dramatic  critic 
came,  the  chap  I  had  met  that  night  on  the  train,  and  with 


400  BLIND 

him  the  little  journalist  with  whom  we  had  dined  in  the 
London  cafe — he  had  been  killed  in  Flanders.  And  some 
of  them  talked  intensely,  but  others  said  to  me  nothing 
at  all — silent  enigmas  in  the  vast  puzzle — "What  was  it 
for?  What  will  it  bring?"  Figures  from  a  host  of  mil 
lions  all  forever  silent  now.  But  what  eyes  they  had! 
They  seemed  to  say, 

"What  a  pity  you  are  blind,  all  you  who  are  living — 
blind  to  the  forces  that  struck  us  down,  blind  to  what 
lies  just  ahead." 

Why  live  on  in  such  a  world?  In  my  morbid  gloom 
I  asked  why  not  join  the  Silent  Army? 


.  2. 

Sometimes  in  a  dressing-gown  I  would  come  softly 
down  the  stairs  and  settle  deep  into  a  chair  before  the 
fire.  One  night  growing  chilly  I  groped  for  a  log  and 
put  it  on  the  embers.  A  moment  later,  with  a  thrill,  I 
felt  that  the  sleeve  of  my  gown  had  caught  fire.  I  hesi 
tated — then  put  it  out.  But  the  odor  of  the  burning  wool 
must  have  reached  a  room  above,  for  presently  I  heard 
Dorothy  coming.  How  did  I  know  it  was  Dorothy? 
Through  these  super-ears  of  mine.  I  heard  her  come 
quickly  as  though  in  alarm,  then  stop  and  look  over  the 
banister. 

"Isn't  something  burning,  Larry?'* 

"No — it's  all  right  now/'  I  said. 

"What  is  it?"  She  came  to  my  chair,  and  I  felt  her 
hand  on  my  burnt  sleeve.  "Now  she's  worrying,"  I 
thought.  Poor  girl,  it  wasn't  easy  to  have  a  chap  like 
me  in  the  house. 

"Pretty  hard,  isn't  it,  dear,"  she  said.  "I  used  to  sit 
in  this  chair  myself."  I  turned  my  head  quickly,  then 
felt  her  hand.  "I  used  to  come  down  here  often  at 
night.  ...  It  seems  so  far  behind  me  now.  Thank 
God  the  war  is  over." 


BLIND  401 

"It  isn't"  I  said,  "not  the  worst  of  it." 

"Yes — things  still  look  black — I  know.  But  it  hasn't 
always  been  like  this — and  I  don't  believe  it  will  be — 
long."  Her  hand  slowly  tightened  on  my  own — and  sud 
denly,  as  though  she  had  spoken,  two  pictures  flashed  out 
of  the  past.  One  was  of  that  labor  pageant  where  she 
had  sat  by  my  side;  the  other  was  of  that  multitude  of 
men  and  women  and  children  out  at  Ellis  Island  with  a 
passion  of  hope  in  their  eyes.  Just  so  her  hand  had  tight 
ened  then. 

"It's  pretty  black,"  I  heard  her  say,  "until  you  try  to 
get  out  of  the  present — look  'way  back — and  then  ahead. 
I  feel  so  sure  that  in  a  few  years  it  will  grow  better,"  she 
went  on.  "I  don't  believe  people  in  any  country  will 
ever  want  any  war  again — at  least  not  for  so  long  a  time 
that  meanwhile  there  will  be  a  chance  for  sanity  to  come 
to  us  all."  I  was  silent.  "You  don't  think  so?" 

"I'm  afraid  you're  not  facing  this,"  I  said. 

"Perhaps  I'm  not.  But  I  think  I've  learned  some 
thing,  Larry.  Until  I  worked  out  of  my  trouble  I  was 
a  pretty  poor  judge  of  the  world — and  I  think  it  will  be 
the  same  with  you.  You  can't  feel  it  now — but  remem 
ber  that  I  know  you  so  well.  I've  been  thinking  a  good 
deal  lately,  dear.  You're  so  much  stronger  than  you 
know — and  I'm  sure  you  will  come  through  all  this." 
Again  there  was  silence,  and  she  said,  "It's  Mother  that 
I'm  anxious  for." 

"How  do  you  mean?" 

"She's  almost  dying,  Larry.  Already  she  has  to  keep  to 
her  room — and  you  had  barely  noticed  that.  In  another 
year  she  may  be  gone.  And  what  I  want  to  ask  is  this. 
I  want  you  to  make  a  better  record  than  I  did  a  year  ago. 
So  far  you've  been  just  like  me — wrapped  up  in  your 
own  troubles.  Oh  I  know  how  hard  it  is — I  know,  I 
know !  But  how  I  wish  I  could  have  spared  Mother  the 
perfect  hell  I  made  her  go  through — just  by  not  trying, 


402  BLIND 

not  realizing!  For  think  what  it  means;  All  her  life 
Mother  has  been — what  you  know.  Then  the  war  came 
— a  frightful  shock — but  she  met  that  by  building  up  a 
great  house  of  new  ideals  to  live  in,  a  house 
that  took  in  the  whole  world.  It  was  pretty 
plucky  at  seventy,  Larry.  But  now  that  house  is  falling 
down — and  she  won't  have  time  to  build  another — nor 
the  strength.  She's  trying  to — I  shouldn't  wonder  if 
even  tonight  she  were  lying  awake  upstairs — trying  so 
hard  to  work  it  out.  But  she  can't  do  it  without  our  help 
— and  that's  why  I'm  asking  you  to  make  a  better  record 
than  I  did.  That's  why  I'm  not  facing  this,  as  you 
say.  You  may  be  right  and  you  may  be  wrong — there'll 
be  time  enough  to  find  out  later  on.  But  there  isn't  much 
time  for  Mother.  If  she's  to  see  any  victory  she'll  have 
to  see  it  very  soon — and  she'll  have  to  see  it  in  her  chil 
dren.  She's  like  that — she  has  always  been.  She  has 
got  to  see  our  lives  working  out  to  some  kind  of  hope 
and  happiness." 

She  waited. 

"I'll  do  my  best,"  I  said. 

But  I  was  not  thinking  of  my  aunt.  I  was  thinking 
of  Dorothy.  For  in  a  flash  it  came  over  me  that  she 
spoke  only  half  the  truth;  that  she,  too,  was  thinking  not 
of  her  mother  but  of  me;  that  as  I  slipped  down  into  the 
dark  she  was  trying  to  hold  me  back — with  this  slowly 
tightening  hand  of  hers  and  this  appeal  to  my  love  for 
my  aunt;  and  with  that  queer  pity  women  feel  she  was 
even  coming  to  care  for  me!  And  I  wanted  her — so 
sharply  and  so  desperately  then,  that  for  a  few  moments 
I  sat  very  still. 

"I'll  do  my  best,"  I  repeated.  "Won't  you  please- 
please  leave  me  now?" 

After  she  had  gone,  my  thinking  went  on  rapidly. 

"She's  ready  to  do  it  again,"  I  thought.  "But  she 
mustn't!  To  spend  the  rest  of  her  life  with  a  shattered 


BLIND  403 

wreck  like  me — morbid,  blind  in  body  and  soul?  No!" 
I  decided  savagely.  But  I  thought  of  the  forces  here 
drawing  us  together.  Her  mother  dying?  No,  not  yet 
— but  she  had  not  very  long  to  live.  And  then  what? 
Dorothy  and  I,  left  in  this  house  where  we  had  been 
reared.  A  vista  opened  suddenly.  I  was  afraid  and 
turned  away.  Desperately  I  began  to  think  what  I  could 
do — where  I  could  go.  But  it  is  not  easy  for  one  who  is 
blind.  I  sent  for  Steve  and  asked  him  to  help  me. 

"No,  you  must  stay  here,"  he  said.  "It's  your  only 
chance  to  come  out  of  this.  I'm  seeing  hundreds  of  men 
like  you — in  hospitals — the  blind,  the  insane — it's  like  a 
black  inferno  there.  And  even  with  me  you  only  grew 
worse.  No,  your  only  chance  is  here — here  in  this  house 
that  holds  so  much  of  your  life  beside  the  present." 

"It  holds  too  much!"  I  answered.  I  gave  him  some 
hint  of  the  night  before. 

"You're  right,"  he  said,  when  I  had  finished,  "and 
I'll  help  you  get  away — just  as  soon  as  I  know  you're  a 
hopeless  case.  But  you're  not  so  now,  you're  going  to 
fight.  There's  a  good  chance  still  and  you're  going  to 
take  it."  I  made  no  reply.  Then  I  heard  him  say, 
"Your  eyes  are  already  as  well  as  mine."  I  caught  his 
hand. 

"What  do  you  mean?    Good  God,  Steve " 

His  voice  went  on  in  a  curious  tone  of  concentration, 
tense  and  low, 

"I  mean  the  trouble  is  in  the  nerves — as  I've  told  you 
before — and  they  may  be  cured.  I  don't  say  it  is  likely, 
but  I  say  there  is  a  chance — and  this  gloom  of  yours  is 
spoiling  it.  For  the  more  we  grope  along  in  our  science, 
the  more  mysteries  we  find  in  the  ties  between  a  man's 
mind  and  his  body.  We  see  miracles  performed.  .  .  . 
But  if  there's  one  here  it  will  have  to  be  soon.  I'm  not 

lying  to  you,  Larry "     His  voice,  still  low,  grew 

sharp  and  clear.     "You  haven't  much  time.     In  a  few 


404  BLIND 

months  it  will  be  too  late.  Even  now  I  say  there's  just  a 
chance!  But  I'm  asking  you  to  go  over  the  top!  You 
will  never  get  back  your  sight  without  your  inner  vision, 
too — your  hope  in  life!  So  let's  look  at  this  world 
again,  you  and  I,  and  see  if  it  is  dark  as  it  seems !" 

"You  mean  that  I'm  to  to  learn  to  say,  'God's  in  his 
heaven — all's  well  with  the  world'  ?"  I  demanded  harshly, 
I  was  quivering.  In  my  shaken  state,  with  shattered 
nerves,  I  could  not  keep  down  the  rising  excitement. 
I  clinched  my  hands!  They  were  icy! 

"Steady,  now — I  know  it's  hard.  But  listen — come 
along  with  me."  His  steady  hand  and  arm  went  around 
me.  "See  it  real.  I  don't  want  you  to  lie  to  yourself — 
I'm  asking  you  to  fight  for  the  truth.  Have  you  got  it 
now?  Are  you  sure  you  have?  Or  is  this  black  view 
of  yours  all  colored  by  what  you've  been  through? 
Remember  I  was  a  surgeon  once " 

Steve's  right  hand  closed  on  mine.  With  a  shock  that 
went  tingling  through  me,  I  felt  the  strength  of  that 
crippled  hand !  Back  went  my  thoughts  in  one  great  leap 
to  the  time  of  his  agony  long  ago. 

"And  I  came  through,"  I  heard  him  say.  "Will  you 
fight  this,  Larry?" 

"Yes,"  I  said. 


3. 

Our  talk  went  on  half  through  the  night.  He  lifted 
me  and  forced  me  on;  he  took  my  mind  careering  with 
his  out  over  the  earth  to  the  widely  scattered  multitude 
of  lonely  figures  like  ourselves — in  cities,  towns  and  vil 
lages  and  out  under  the  silent  stars — the  watchers 
among  the  sleepers — who,  while  most  of  the  people  went 
on  blindly  as  before,  alone  or  in  pairs  or  little  groups 
were  groping  and  searching  for  a  way  out  of  the  pres 
ent  darkness.  And  though  they  were  so  scattered  now, 


BLIND  405 

the  future  lay  in  their  hands,  he  said.  Slowly  at  first, 
then  rapidly,  they  would  increase  in  every  land. 

"And  then  they  will  combine.  They  must.  For  the 
war  at  least  has  taught  one  thing — the  immense  poten 
tialities  in  cooperation!"  he  said.  "I  look  back  into  the 
ages  and  I  see  the  whole  world  game  as  a  war  between 
light  and  darkness,  life  and  death.  And  nothing  else 
can  really  count.  For  this  instinct  in  all  people — to  live 
and  see  and  understand — resistless  as  the  ocean  tide — in 
spite  of  all  reactions,  moves  inexorably  on — to  coopera 
tion  within  each  land  and  cooperation  between  them  all, 
in  the  struggle  out  of  darkness,  the  war  against  disease 
and  death !" 

He  reminded  me  of  the  miracles  of  vitality  we  had 
seen  in  the  war,  the  startling  revelations  of  reserve 
forces  hidden  in  men  and  brought  forth  by  the  mighty 
stimulus  of  this  cooperation,  this  working  and  enduring 
all  together  as  parts  of  a  whole.  This  whole  had  been 
the  nation.  Soon  it  would  become  the  world — an  entity 
so  much  more  complex  and  bristling  with  uncertainties, 
but  boundless  possibilities,  too!  Harshly  I  reminded 
him  that  cooperation  could  work  both  ways — that  if  a 
few  liberal-minded  men  were  getting  together  in  every 
land,  so  were  the  extremists  combining  upon  either  side, 
to  drive  us  back  into  despotism  or  on  into  a  chaotic  mob 
rule.  Let  them,  Steve  retorted.  They  would  never  be 
satisfied  until  they  had  fought  it  out.  And  the  triumph 
of  either  extreme  would  be  brief.  If  the  Reds  won  out, 
they  would  be  forced  by  life  itself  to  moderate.  Already 
in  Russia  they  were  doing  that.  And  if  the  reaction 
aries  won,  their  triumph  would  be  briefer  still.  For 
humanity  wanted  a  sane  middle  course.  Soon  the  cry 
would  go  up  in  the  world  for  the  real  builders,  healers; 
and  one  by  one  the  great  engineers  would  appear  to  lead 
us  all  in  the  gigantic  era  of  reconstruction  and  progress 


406  BLIND 

ahead.  Changes?  Yes,  prodigious  changes!  Thank 
God  for  this  restlessness ! 

And  as  with  nations,  so  with  men.  Through  all  his 
talk  in  that  long  night  I  could  feel  Steve  approach  my 
case.  He  spoke  of  the  patients  in  his  care,  widely  dif 
ferent  kinds  of  men  who  were  being  built  up  after  the 
storm.  So  many  of  them  were  being  forced  to  take 
stock  of  their  lives  and  make  fresh  starts.  But  without 
such  jolts  and  changes,  how  blind  and  arrogant  was  suc 
cess.  Again  he  spoke  of  his  own  life.  "What  a  great 
god  I  thought  myself,  till  suddenly  I  was  brought  down." 
The  socalled  great  ones  we  had  known,  what  uninspir 
ing  chaps  they  were  compared  to  those  still  struggling  up. 
In  restlessness,  in  hunger,  in  groping  and  searching  lay 
the  hope,  and  the  only  hope,  of  any  real  growth.  He 
turned  abruptly  to  my  work. 

"How  about  those  plays  you  wrote?" 

"Half  the  work  was  done  in  rehearsal,"  I  said. 

"You  mean  that  you  can't  handle  'em  now.  But  think 
a  minute.  Are  you  sure  that  what  you  wrote  was  so 
worth  while?  I  don't  know  much  about  your  work,  but 
you've  told  me  enough  to  make  me  sure  that  the  Broad 
way  theatre  is  no  place  for  a  man  who  wants  to  write 
God's  honest  truth.  And  that's  what  you  want  to  do 
now,  old  boy.  It's  the  biggest  thing  in  you,  this  passion 
to  write.  It's  your  chance,  the  only  chance  you've  got — 
but  it's  big — a  chance  for  a  big  honest  book !  Not  about 
the  war — don't  tackle  that  yet.  Go  way  back  into  your 
life — from  there  work  slowly  through  the  years — and 
when  you  reach  the  present  you  may  not  find  it  quite  so 
dark."  He  was  silent  for  a  moment.  "You  may  even 
find  you  can  see,"  he  said. 

Once  more  those  words  went  through  me  like  a  sud 
den  flare  of  light.  Although  at  first  I  dismissed  the  idea, 
he  came  back  to  it  again  and  again.  At  last  he  got  me 
to  promise  to  try;  and  in  the  days  that  followed,  with  a 


BLIND  407 

deepening  glow  of  surprise  I  found  that  under  all  my 
gloom  the  old  will  to  write  was  in  me  still.  And  thi? 
sharp  hungry  instinct,  this  weird  mysterious  craving  to 
put  one's  self  on  paper,  soon  had  such  a  powerful  hold 
that  I  began  to  get  my  grip  on  the  hope  which  Steve  had 
given. 

I  let  Dorothy  help  me  now.  I  had  avoided  her  before, 
and  I  meant  to  still — but  in  spite  of  myself  the  talks  we 
had  grew  longer.  We  kept  them  to  this  book  of  mine. 
As  though  we  were  both  a  little  afraid  of  the  present 
and  the  future,  we  travelled  far  back  into  the  years, 
evoking  the  scenes  and  the  faces.  The  spring  had  come ; 
we  sat  under  the  trees — or  again,  Dorothy  would  pro 
pose,  "Let's  go  up  to  Mother's  room" — and  there  the 
talk  would  go  on,  with  my  aunt.  And  Steve  still  came 
to  me  often  at  night.  For  they  seemed  afraid  to  leave 
me  alone. 

Slowly  the  numberless  scattered  ideas  came  together 
and  took  form,  in  a  long  chain  of  memories  leading  me 
back — an  escape  from  the  present  into  the  past,  from  an 
ominous  tense  oppressive  country  into  a  far  distant  land. 


4. 

So  this  narrative  was  begun.  As  I  sat  here  late  in  the 
evening  alone,  the  pictures  from  that  distant  land  became 
more  vivid  than  ever  before.  It  was  as  though  from  a 
dark  passage  I  looked  into  a  lighted  room.  And  by 
degrees  I  began  to  feel  that  it  was  not  now  but  in  the 
past  that  I  had  been  blind.  My  life  had  been  hasty, 
crowded,  assaulted  upon  every  side  by  a  storm  of  impres 
sions,  sights  and  sounds,  the  chatter  of  people  as  blind 
as  I.  But  now  the  million  and  one  details  of  life  upor 
the  city  streets — the  masses  of  faces  sweeping  by,  the 
chatter,  surge  and  roar  and  quiver,  that  I  had  felt  even 
day — wns  p^ne.  In  this  silent  room  at  night,  forced  r 
against  realities — asking,  "What  was  it  all  about? 


408  BLIND 

What  have  I  been  up  to  all  my  life?  To  what  were  we 
rushing  so?" — I  looked  back  into  the  turgid  years. 
Steadily  and  calmly,  with  clear  vision?  No,  indeed.  I 
was  still  only  groping.  Again  and  again  I  had  to  stop, 
destroy  what  I  had  written  and  make  a  fresh  start.  For 
all  those  haunting  monitors,  gathered  close  around  me 
still,  kept  sternly  saying,  "Brother — the  truth!"  We 
were  so  close  together  here  that  by  degrees  I  found 
myself  writing  my  whole  book  for  them.  And  uncon 
sciously  at  first,  in  the  relief  of  my  escape,  I  glorified  my 
country's  past  as  compared  to  these  fat  puffy  days.  I 
pictured  the  America  that  had  gone  to  war  with  no  selfish 
aim;  the  powerful  nation  sanely  free  and  showing  a 
bewildered  world  a  safe  middle  ground  between  either 
extreme  of  anarchy  on  the  one  hand,  autocracy  on  the 
other;  a  mixing  bowl  for  all  the  races,  an  asylum  for 
the  oppressed.  But  as  I  continued  along  these  lines,  I 
could  feel  my  smiling  monitors  say: 

"The  world  is  too  weary  and  battered  and  wise,  too  up 
against  realities,  to  believe  in  such  radiant  romance  now. 
Brother — the  truth !" 

And  I  tried  for  that.  I  began  my  book  again.  Grimly 
I  stuck  to  what  I  myself  had  seen  and  heard  in  this 
country,  ever  since  those  eager  days  when  I  was  a  small 
boy  at  Seven  Pines.  One  by  one  I  collected  the  mem 
ories  of  my  own  little  life  and  what  it  had  touched  upon 
as  it  wound  this  way  and  that.  "For  this  is  all  that  I 
really  know."  And  many  scenes  and  incidents  came  in 
to  mar  my  picture  of  the  Great  Democracy.  Some  were 
just  petty  and  commonplace — things  that  the  people  I 
had  known  had  said  or  done  or  schemed  to  do ;  but  other 
scenes  were  pretty  black — Steve's  hospital,  our  year  in 
the  slums,  cops,  ward  heelers,  crooks  and  bums  and  pros 
titutes,  arrogant  little  Reds  and  equally  arrogant  fat 
heads  uptown;  and  towering  over  all  of  these,  the  big 


BLIND  409 

stout  man  with  yellow  eyes  who  had  produced  those 
plays  of  mine  and  had  colored  them  up  to  tickle  the 
palate  of  the  tired  business  man.  Like  ghosts  they  rose 
between  me  and  the  effort  to  glorify  my  land. 

Moreover,  my  memories  of  the  past  were  colored  by 
the  present.  It  was  hard  to  boast  of  our  people  now. 
Again  in  waves  my  bitterness  would  come  back  and 
engulf  me  still.  For  long  periods  I  stopped  writing  and 
tried  to  wrestle  out  the  truth.  We  who  had  proclaimed 
to  the  stars  a  mighty  generous  league  of  nations,  a  new 
world  order  of  mutual  aid,  what  in  the  name  of  the 
lads  who  had  died  were  we  doing  to  fulfill  our  promise  ? 
We  had  left  the  powers  at  Versailles,  the  good  old  diplo 
matic  rats,  to  gnaw  to  shreds  the  big  ideals  that  had  swept 
our  country  into  the  war;  and  while  our  politicians  were 
squabbling  over  what  was  left,  each  little  American  citi 
zen  was  back  in  his  Yankee  rut.  "How  are  you  helping 
our  friends  overseas!"  my  monitors  seemed  to  demand. 
To  feed  and  clothe  the  starving  shivering  millions  of 
victims  "over  there,"  were  we  stinting  ourselves?  Not 
at  all!  Such  an  orgy  of  spending  had  set  in  as  was 
never  seen  in  this  land  before.  And  when  the  masses  went 
on  strike  in  order  to  double  their  wages  and  join  in  the 
merry  spending  game,  the  patriots  who  were  still  on 
top,  faced  by  this  seething  restlessness,  replied  by  shriek 
ing  "Bolsheviks !"  and  spreading  hysteria  over  the  land. 
For  the  moment  my  country  had  gone  blind.  How  could 
such  pigmies  build  a  new  world?  Where  was  the  hope 
in  a  league  of  nations,  if  when  the  plans  had  been  written 
on  paper  only  such  little  little  men  in  the  world  to 
work  them  out?  What  possibility  was  left  of  any  wide 
generous  vision  ? 

Nor  did  I  feel  like  a  god  looking  down  upon  all  this. 
In  my  desperate  searching  I  came  to  feel  a  part  of  it.  I 
cried ^to  myself,  "Like  my  age  I  am  blind!  The  war  like 


410  BLIND 

a  great  dazzling  flame  has  seared  my  eyes  and  left  me 
in  darkness!  Where  shall  I  go?  Where  is  light  by 
which  to  see  the  road?" 

But  as  I  slowly  groped  my  way  through  the  memories 
of  my  life,  at  last  the  years  began  to  reply.  For  had 
not  humanity  from  the  start  been  made  up  of  just  such 
pigmies?  And  yet  when  you  looked  at  them  not  alone 
but  as  dark  little  silhouettes  against  the  glowing  back 
grounds  of  their  achievements  on  the  earth,  what  stu 
pendous  changes  these  blind  little  men  and  women  had 
wrought,  even  in  my  lifetime — in  the  twinkling  of  an 
age!  I  could  look  back  into  the  days  when  the  world 
was  not  bound  so  distractingly  close  by  the  steamship 
and  the  railroad,  the  automobile,  the  aeroplane,  the  tele 
phone,  cable  and  wireless,  the  newspaper,  the  magazine, 
the  book,  the  film,  the  swiftly  growing  cities  and  towns. 
Even  I  could  remember  a  time  when  most  of  these  phe 
nomena  would  have  been  thought  the  wildest  dreams. 
Yet  they  had  come.  And  they  were  the  Changers,  they 
were  the  Blind  Revolutionists,  transforming  the  world 
for  better  or  worse — themselves  mere  products  of  the 
minds  of  pigmy  men  and  women.  So  men  had  loosed 
the  forces  which  reacting  on  themselves  had  utterly 
transformed  their  lives  and  were  still  rushing  us  on  at 
a  pace  that  made  the  whole  fabric  of  civilization  quiver 
and  shake  as  at  the  impact  of  a  storm. 

Blind — blind!  Yet  through  it  all,  it  seemed  to  me 
now,  as  I  slowly  regained  my  vision,  that  ever  since  my 
boyhood  these  chaotic  tides  of  change  had  moved  in  one 
direction.  I  thought  of  Ellis  Island  and  the  grand 
migrations  of  people,  surging  on  from  East  to  West. 
Out  onto  the  prairies  the  homeseekers  poured,  and  up 
into  the  mountains,  swiftly  peopling  the  land  my  Aunt 
Amelia  loved  so  well,  the  pioneer  West  with  its  hard 
rough  life,  its  crude  democracy,  hopes  and  dreams  and 
crimes  and  schemes  and  lusts  of  eager  hungry  youth. 


BLIND  411 

But  as  the  open  country  filled,  there  came  a  rush  back  to 
the  towns,  the  sons  and  daughters  of  our  farms  joining 
the  incoming  tides  from  abroad  to  crowd  our  cities  and 
mining  towns  and  mill  and  factory  centers  with  an  omin 
ous  discontent.  I  thought  of  the  packed  roaring  streets 
of  New  York — dirty  stinking  streets  at  night  down  in 
the  restless  teeming  slums;  Fifth  Avenue  at  five  o'colck, 
one  long  gorgeous  gleam  of  cash;  and  Broadway  at  the 
theatre  hour,  opening  nights  of  plays  of  mine.  I  thought 
of  Dad's  luxurious  home,  and  of  that  big  New  Jersey 
strike.  What  a  city,  what  a  country — crowding,  crowd 
ing,  crowding  up,  dividing  into  rich  and  poor,  chaotic, 
every  man  for  himself,  and  the  devil  take  the  hindmost! 

Then  came  the  Great  Interruption.  For  with  a  blind 
ing  flash  of  guns  the  pigmy  millions  overseas  rushed 
together;  and  jerked  from  its  old  isolation  my  country 
was  relentlessly  drawn  into  the  bloody  family.  War  to 
the  death!  And  in  this  war  the  old  class  bitterness 
drowned  out,  in  every  land  all  classes  fused  together 
in  a  rigid  whole.  Discipline.  Authority.  I  recalled  the 
German  army.  Husky  boys  with  obedient  eyes  crowd 
ing  into  trains  and  lorries,  tramping  along  muddy  roads. 
Night  in  the  trenches — colored  lights,  the  long  weird 
whines  and  sudden  screams  and  crashing  din  of 
shells  above — and  around  me  those  obedient  eyes  Cold 
ghastly  little  villages  in  Belgium  and  in  Northern  France, 
in  Poland  and  Galicia;  throngs  of  refugees  on  roads, 
starving,  sick,  the  victims  of  war.  On  they  went  in  the 
mud  and  the  dark — the  powers  above  them  pressing  them 
down.  My  mind  went  back  to  teeming  cities,  out  to 
lonely  hamlets  and  to  ships  upon  the  sea.  Ironclad  dis 
cipline  everywhere. 

And  then  the  tides  beneath  swept  on.  For  what  the 
war  had  interrupted,  it  accelerated  now.  If  for  a  little 
moment  in  time  it  had  increased  authority,  it  had 
strained  the  patient  endurance  of  the  peoples  to  the 


412  BLIND 

breaking  point;  it  had  brought  them  together  as  never 
before.  And  so  came  Russian  memories  where  these 
people  from  below,  from  slums  and  starving  villages, 
surged  along  the  city  streets  in  immense  processions  or 
poured  into  old  palaces  to  organize  crude  parliaments, 
with  shouted  dreams  of  liberty,  equality,  fraternity.  A 
vast  confusion  starting  there — the  Spirit  of  the  Com 
mon  Herd  stalking  blindly  out  to  meet  the  Spirit  of  Vio 
lence  and  War.  And  that  fierce  restlessness  swept  down 
all  over  Europe  and  over  the  seas — until  in  every  land 
it  seemed  that  men  by  countless  millions  were  being 
hurled  together  for  some  titanic  struggle  now! 
Such  were  the  changes  I  had  seen ! 


5. 

Then  I  tried  to  look  ahead, 

I  thought  of  those  Gentlemen  Hounders,  so  conspic 
uous  in  these  days,  so  self -righteously  resolved  to  clamp 
down  the  national  lid  and  see  that  this  damned  process 
of  change  is  put  a  stop  to  once  and  for  all.  And  I  won 
dered  if,  while  still  there  was  time,  these  men  would 
open  their  eyes  and  look  back  into  the  grim  ironic  past. 
Let  no  more  radical  pioneers  be  allowed  to  disturb  this 
peaceful  land?  They  speak  as  men  spoke  long  ago  of 
Wendell  Phillips  and  his  kind.  Mob  them,  lynch  them, 
throw  them  out!  No  more  of  this  labor  discontent! 
And  as  for  a  league  of  nations,  this  talk  of  a  world 
brotherhood,  let  that  be  deported,  too.  Let  every  new 
thought  be  kept  out  of  our  country,  that  the  old  may 
prosper  here.  It  has  been  tried,  gentlemen,  it  has  been 
tried.  In  Ancient  Rome,  in  Spain,  in  France,  in  Ger 
many  and  Russia,  men  of  your  kind  have  again  and 
again  clamped  down  the  lid.  It  will  never  do.  Deport 
our  Bolsheviki?  As  well  deport  thermometers.  Throw 
them  out  of  the  sick  rooms !  Damn  the  things,  they  scare 
us  so !  Go  at  the  patient  with  whips  instead,  in  the  good 


BLIND  413 

old  medieval  style,  and  beat  the  devils  out  of  him!  But 
what  a  dangerous  policy.  If  the  patient  were  normal, 
gentlemen,  the  thermometer  would  not  scare  you  so. 
But  there  is  a  fever  here,  made  up  of  wrongs  both  old  and 
new,  not  only  in  the  slums  of  our  cities  and  our  ugly 
factory  towns  but  even  out  on  the  farms  as  well — a  deep 
burning  discontent.  You  can't  deport  it,  gentlemen,  nor 
can  you  by  injunctions  force  it  to  dig  coal  out  of  the 
ground.  That  way  leads  to  civil  war. 

Then  I  thought  of  the  Bolsheviki,  and  I  wondered 
what  would  become  of  their  dreams.  I  did  not  believe 
they  would  come  true.  For  though  in  every  country  the 
signs  already  begin  to  appear  of  such  forces  as  may 
soon  result  in  astounding  transformations,  I  do  not  think 
they  can  be  controlled  by  any  one  group  or  any  one 
creed  so  narrow  as  to  say  to  all  others, 

"You  are  all  blind.  We  alone  have  eyes.  We  will  be 
your  eyes  and  your  brains  and  hearts  in  this  crisis  of 
mankind."  For  people  are  not  made  like  that. 
If  our  Gentlemen  Hounders  have  their  way,  then 
indeed  it  may  come  to  a  crash.  But  it  seems  to  me 
that  these  brief  years  of  blind  reaction  will  soon  pass, 
and  that  the  Bolsheviki  will  find  themselves  confronted 
then  by  the  numberless  hosts  of  the  Great  Slow  Revolu 
tion  here.  On  every  hand  there  will  arise  millions  of 
men  and  women,  in  labor  unions,  farmers'  leagues  and 
radical  parties  of  various  brands.  These  people  will  say 
to  the  Bolshevik, 

"Well,  brother,  if  you  think  you've  got  the  Great  Idea, 
go  ahead  and  hire  a  hall." 

And  then  these  men  will  go  busily  on  with  their  own 
revolutions.  The  Bolshevik  will  find  himself  competing 
with  many  strenuous  groups,  each  one  of  whom  will 
shamelessly  steal  a  little  of  his  thunder.  For  the  Great 
Slow  Revolution,  which  began  before  we  were  born  and 
will  continue  doubtless  long  after  we  are  dead,  will  be 


*14  BLIND 

driven  on  its  course  by  all  kinds  and  conditions  of  men, 
and  its  disordered  army  will  offer  no  united  front.  No 
solid  proletariat,  but  a  mighty  hodge-podge  composed 
of  clashing  masses,  each  with  a  different  outlook,  differ 
ent  interests  and  aims.  Not  united  but  in  factions,  in 
confusion  and  in  bitter  sweat,  with  grim  and  vexing 
problems  crowding  in  upon  all  sides,  they  will  make  their 
try  for  democracy. 

And  only  in  part  will  they  succeed;  the  mills  will  still 
grind  slowly  on.  So  it  has  been  through  the  ages.  What 
numberless  millions  have  worked  and  planned  completely 
to  cure  all  the  ills  of  mankind,  to  make  life  easier,  richer, 
to  glorify  it  in  our  eyes.  All  a  failure?  No,  indeed. 
But  how  different  was  the  reality  from  what  they  had 
seen  in  their  dreams.  So  it  has  been  and  so  it  will  be. 
It  is  only  through  the  slow  unconscious  widening  of  this 
Vast  Entente — as  angry  nations,  classes,  creeds  are  inex 
orably  bound  closer  together  through  the  changing  years 
— that  the  great  dim  straining  eyes  of  humanity  will  see 
the  light.  Single  "great  men"  will  arise,  and  sects  and 
unions,  parties,  nations,  to  cry  to  us  all,  "We  have  the 
secret,  we  alone !  The  League !  The  Republic !  The 
Soviet !  We  have  what  will  save  the  world !"  And  each 
will  be  right,  and  each  will  be  wrong.  The  deep  life  pro 
cesses  will  go  on — unfinished,  still  unfinished. 

But  what  building  there  will  be!  Even  now  there 
comes  to  me  a  warm  glorious  certainty  of  the  presence 
of  new  peoples  springing  up  in  every  land.  They  were 
children  when  I  saw  them  last,  in  Russia,  France  and 
Germany.  Even  in  Russia  I  saw  them  play ;  even  in  Bel 
gium  I  heard  them  laugh.  They  were  irrepressible. 
Many  of  them  have  died,  no  doubt,  and  more  are  dying 
as  I  write — because  we  will  not  give  them  food.  But  in 
spite  of  the  famine  and  despair,  I  feel  just  as  sure  as 
though  I  were  with  them  that  all  through  the  bleak  deso 
lation  of  Europe  multitudes  of  children  are  creeping, 


BLIND  415 

playing,  laughing  and  gayly  scampering  about.  By  mil 
lions  they  are  growing  up,  and  like  the  children  of  our 
land  they  begin  to  look  at  the  life  ahead  with  fresh  antici 
pations,  vivid  indignations,  eager  demands  for  a  richer 
life  and  a  world  more  free.  And  I  put  my  hope  in  those 
lives  ahead,  and  I  see  great  vistas  gleaming  there.  For 
these  years  of  war  and  revolution,  in  spite  of  all  their 
horrors,  have  given  us  a  profoundly  startling  glimpse  of 
what  powers  lie  in  men.  What  my  Aunt  Amelia  believed 
so  firmly  to  exist  in  the  spirit  of  her  nation,  is  true  of  all 
peoples  on  the  earth.  In  us  all  is  a  reserve  of  idealism, 
courage,  devotion  and  endurance,  the  presence  of  which 
we  barely  suspect,  we  who  are  so  tragically  blind.  A 
Russian  engineer  once  said, 

"We  are  beggars  sitting  on  bags  of  gold." 
That  is  true  of  all  humanity.    And  through  the  years 
that  are  coming  the  gold  will  appear  to  our  opening 
eyes. 


6. 

And  what  of  my  own  little  life?  Have  I  recovered  the 
use  of  my  eyes?  No,  I  shall  be  blind  for  life — but  in 
spite  of  that  I  am  happier  now  than  I'd  ever  hoped  to  be 
again.  For  when  my  inner  vision  at  last  had  been 
restored  to  me,  one  day  Aunt  Amelia  sent  for  me  to 
come  up  to  her  room.  I  found  my  cousin  Dorothy  there. 
And  her  mother  said  to  us  quietly, 

"Larry  dear,  and  Dorothy,  I'm  afraid  that  I  am  going 
to  try  to  interfere  in  your  lives.  I've  always  tried  not  to 
do  it  before — but  now  I  am  getting  near  the  end.  You 
and  Dorothy  are  my  children.  You've  both  been 
wounded  in  the  war.  I  am  wondering  what  you  are 
going  to  do.  I  feel  so  sure  that  in  this  house  you  could 
be  happy "  she  broke  off.  "I'm  asking  you  to  prom 
ise  me  that  you  will  take  care  of  each  other,  my  dears. 
I've  been  wondering  how  you  can  do  it  best.  It  would 


416  BLIND 

be  unwise,  I  think,  to  try  to  go  on  living  here  unless  you 
marry — but  watching  you  both,  I  know  you  have  come 
to  care  for  each  other,  so  deeply  and  so  certainly,  that 
this  could  not  be  a  mistake.  It  was  only  your  own 
trouble,  Larry,  that  has  been  standing  in  the  way — your 
feeling  that  you  might  be  a  burden.  But  though  in  your 
eyes  you  are  still  blind,  in  your  spirit  you  are  no  longer 
so.  And  so  there  is  nothing  left  in  the  way  of  the  victory 
I've  waited  for." 

We  did  not  keep  her  waiting  long. 

And  now  as  I  sit  here  late  at  night  alone  in  this  famil 
iar  room,  with  my  own  little  agony  left  behind  and  my 
new  life  opening  ahead,  it  feels  so  quiet  and  serene,  it  is 
hard  to  believe  the  war  was  real.  Yet  once  again  these 
monitors,  as  though  fearing  that  I  might  forget,  seem 
whispering, 

"Revolution.  The  world  that  you  have  seen  with 
your  eyes  has  amazingly  changed  since  you  were  born. 
And  even  more  astounding  will  be  the  turgid  tidings  of 
change  that  will  come  to  your  ears  before  you  are  dead." 

THE    END. 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW 


AN     INITIAL    FINE    OF    25    CENTS 

WILL  BE  ASSESSED  FOR  FAILURE  TO  RETURN 
THIS  BOOK  ON  THE  DATE  DUE.  THE  PENALTY 
WILL  INCREASE  TO  SO  CENTS  ON  THE  FOURTH 
DAY  AND  TO  $1.OO  ON  THE  SEVENTH  DAY 
OVERDUE. 


AUU    7     19: 
OCT    3   1933 

4 

DEC  13  1944 


RECEIVED 

W    7'68*9PM 

LOAN  DEPT. 


REC'D  '  ' 
REO'D  i-iJ 


'REC.  CIEL 


BBBHBBHBIIBBHHBHPHi 

gp"  ~^|-  *^" 


4-'bd-5P 


« 151982      * 

?  1982 


LD  21-50m-l,' 


YB  68446 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


• 


*   V. 


